don’t you see me? thin fleshed and flickering
bones i could have sworn i remembered
you placing the bulb in the cartilage pressing
wire circuits in my veins / can’t you see me
now after you placed me here all funny looking
and cracked like an old window? the rest of
them have opacity stretched over their frames
they bleed and i do too, more than i breathe
don’t you hear me heaving under the weight of a
name i did not choose? smothered beneath it all
my mouth– that sad, sorrowful thing it is–
ajar and unable to form anything of healing?
dna, littered condensation collecting on the
cover of the pillow i thought was love
and here it is, nothing more than down feathers
of a dead goose and a cotton case and can’t you
see me through the woven fabric? through the
worn down atmosphere / through all this
universe and eons of blackness scouring a sky?
gasping, sweating, choking through a muted,
open-mouthed plea the first born daughter,
the hilt of all things crooked, the sad solemn
final note in a lineage of sturdy joy?

–don’t You?