We’re too damaged to go back now, left a little too far
open, lost moons, the open box-cutters
with a blade that shines like glass
against your hair, your eyes, the feeling of blade
to skin. Watching you, this is how a river feels—
too cool, too fast, a stampede of horses. We can only
stand by and watch them wade in, knee-deep, and then
chest-buried, before the current takes them. The last thing we see
are the flickers of white in their eyes, a flash
of their teeth. Of course, none of this really happens, but
you feel it anyway. You grieve for them
and want to go out to adopt a colt. You want to go out
and plant something green. You want to apply
moisturizer to the memory of cuts, as if there ever
really had been any. Sometimes, you wish
there had been, so you could feel something else, feel
something a little out-of-control, a little bloody.
You close your eyes and see ribbons of skin, spinning
like ribbon dancers, in every direction, a hall of mirrors.
This may be as real to you as death will ever be, and so
you take it all in, opening every window, hearing
every crash from the city.