First the bad boots
give up their strength, then the toes lift
their anchors. The ankle
bones are broken,
and so on, until the bladder lets go, without
shame, and the genital
organ washes away, the ovum
and her fertile signals. A proxy pain
stands in for the larger
intangible.
Has nothing to do
with tufts of snow blown upon
the unforgiving surface,
but how I mistook the beauty of those particle
deaths, their of-the-world
stardom, as a kind of metaphysical river,
that if I looked long enough,
with enough reverence...
Let my waist, bled numb, stand in
for that miscalculation. And the severed
friendships in the current’ s wake, the bloom
blown off the stricken
self. I saw formal water,
knowing my body wanted to go there.
My only child. How
I’ ve betrayed you.