& it’s winter ’09-
my mother serves me sliced apples & i stuff them in my
cheeks, ripe
laughter spilling out of my too-small mouth &
bounding off my tongue. in this moment & the rest,
time is a freshly ironed sheet, crisp with the sun.
every tree’s filtered light is a personal disco ball. i dance
to almost-visible sound & my head is a tooth ready to fall.
i think i could be the bobblehead on my father’s dashboard
& i giggle at the sight of it.
again again again
i am just a child –
inflatable toes & always forgetting how real a body is.
everyone has touched me but no one has
Touched me & i am
my body & everything more & it is all still mine &
it’s winter 2020 & there’s a pandemic
outside & it’s blooming. i am sitting in the bathroom
trying to scrub the skin off of
my body, pressed against the side of the sink.
i hang it up by the fingernails to dry in the spilt drool of the sun.
i am blacking out all the mirrors,
braiding pearls into my hair,
planting white lilies in the garden
& i am still
just my looted body & the skin holding it together
& nothing more.
time in the time of lockdowns is fruit-bowl still-
each second sits, ripe & ready to be peeled
open. i watch them rot.
i see my reflection hiding in the window
& i am tangible again. someone Touches me
to the chants of tired protests
& the worldwide gravedigging.
my body wonders if it can be a watch.
wonders if it can be a stamp
in the corner of an envelope-