Every seven years
along with its skin
like an inflated balloon
emptying itself of air
it sheds its past
and the knowledge it had won
through swamps, villages
and gardens of myth
the reason it was created
as a metaphor for sin

Every seven years
it grows more beautiful
spotted, speckled and striped
re-filled with ravenous air
reborn to seduce again
in its conquest of the soul.