Molting Shell Keeps Old Shape

The cicada leaves its shell fastened to bark, legs still gripping, back split open where the new body pulled free. The shell does not fall. It hardens into the exact posture of the moment before departure, a husk shaped like climbing, shaped like effort, though nothing climbs inside it anymore. Ants investigate the hollow chest and find no reason to stay. Rain fills the eye sockets and drains out through the seam. Seasons later the shell still clings, paler now, brittle, holding the shape of a decision that happened once, quickly, and then never again. Something left. The leaving is what remains.