unpeel me from my skin & let us wash it in the sea;

the salt will scour sediment from my capillaries.

 

glistening & exposed, I will pull down the sickle of the moon

& scrape my tendons clean. if we touch, you will find me

like the segments of an orange: membranous & soft

beneath your fingers; flesh giving, but liable

to burst.

 

~~

 

later, it may occur that oceans have beds:

that strange sentiments may settle to the bottom

like the dregs of ancient sharks. the ravelling of me

is a thing of quiet veins, bones turned fibrous

with moonlight, fingers unspooling into sound

& longing. there are such creatures in the depths,

after all; I am permitted to become gelatinous with silence.

 

~~

 

of such things are lives remade: slow patient stitches,

the curved needle bone-carved in your grieving hands.

 

beloved, did you string it through with spider silk,

have you washed full well in snowmelt? I am amorphous &

malignant, love; you must not be subsumed. if you must

preserve the skin of such a creature, is it not enough

to weep over the shell?             there is no need

to gather such foam as may linger at the tideline,

fat glistening & unwanted among the kelp; no need

to press forgotten flesh into old forms.

 

there are tides, my love, and tithes, and things

I would not have you pay; cold hungers drifting

like millennia across the peaceful deep. I am not

the one you lost.

 

~~

 

but oh. your touch is fire. and I am weak.

© 2020 Jennifer Mace