graphic by lyn enrico
Starts like some countryside evening; pigment of night
streaked silver as if chasing wolves. Warmth, as to flush,
but softening. No, simmer. Melt like wax, which is to say fall
apart with purpose. Somewhere there is a mother
looking at photos of a faded family holiday.
The pictures are fine, it is the memory that disintegrates.
You think everything is important until sitting in front of a mirror
feels like a dissection. Anatomy of a firework. All there
is to do is burn forever, but the colour? The fuel?
Bristles on tin, hair pulling itself away from the skin,
swipe cheeks with metal. Matchmake a new shade:
rust, blood in toothpaste spit, a slow ripening
full-body sunburn. You are the mother and you are
tonguing syllables against the roof of your mouth,
willing them to stick, wishing them to speech.
In wettest dreams there is never a face,
but not like this. Not when the world is glass,
and you an infinite reproduction.