My body's naked decay
illuminates a room of mirrors,
themselves reflections, years
compressed into a backward look.
That was flat bone, that, my eye,
that, hard skin, sharp spine.
As number shapes itself,
we all gradually freeze
into the markless prism
of each day: One. Attention!
Two. Prayer! Three. Reach out!
Thus, the count approximates me.
The caliper and the scale
exact a shade of difference
between mole and melanoma-
sensations bought and sold:
a faceless, Ernstian torso,
odalisque sans ottoman,
I beckon like blue oblivion.
Afloat in a dusty tearpool
with feathers, stone, and pigment
peeled from unsized canvas,
mine is the life of reclining truth,
with plump breasts pointing up.
