Day Eight

heir presumptive

of rectangles  i say:    bricks

    hot suns spreading themselves thin

~

i kept notebooks filled with

            my pretend importants: weights, lines i couldn’t step on,

the places i hid books, hoping the words wouldn’t haunt me at night

dirt, that could be wet but not necessary

futility,   explanatory loveliness

i couldn’t stop,                not for   death

   or porcelain filled  trees,

   how badly everything needs to be cleaned

~

i forgot how to say     pallor, your pronoun

you, 2 and 3 years older than the oldest

  person

       i’ve ever caught   scooping    up

weeds and rock salt,    trying to be

  my clothes

your stillness,  all the showing skin

not even enough to bathe in.

~

someday, my body parts will be so far away

  from each other,    they won’t know

where the other ones  are.