Mark Bonica

Mark Bonica is a graduate student at George Mason University and a career soldier in the US Army.  His work has been
published in a variety of print and online venues including Niederngasse, NFG, Bewildering Stories, Znine, and others.  He
founded the speculative fiction group Imaginaries (www.imaginaries.com).  His non-fiction blog is The Recalcitrant Egg
(www.recalcitrantegg.blogspot.com).

The Second Time Around

The weight of being Hindu,
and a snail,
is so much heavier
the second time around.

The subtleties of enlightened snailness
are much deeper
than those of humanness.
The choices are so few,
one must constantly be attuned
to the earth and sky,
the temperature and the humidity.
There is no room for error,
no one wants to spend another life
exploring grassness,
even if for a summer.