
SELF-PRESERVATION AUBADE
I have made book of your body, read
in your heavy lids the hooded font of sleep,
made, even, punctuation—your ticks
accenting anxiety like apostrophes.
I’m sorry I read you, but I need to sidestep
the language your body rings—its emotions
all bells clanging in my mind’s cathedral
what might soon become danger
or a tongue-torched anger—balled
fist, tight-knit jaw, a murkiness crawled
behind the half-drawn valance of the eyes,
this study, this habit, what my therapist calls
a survival mechanism, after four years learning
a mother could machine-gun the thinness
of my sheet metal peace. At least this means,
I’ve survived. At least, this means
when the sun dispatches bullets
through my curtain, I will be holy
and wholly breathing. I will mirror,
the glassy stillness of an October dawn
before cars split their beams through the glint
of it, and if I could just hold the autumn in
do you think I could be beautiful? because
when I’m angry, I Shar Pei in a quiet rage,
and when I’m sad, my lips plump
and droop like plums, at least this means
there’s sweetness still—and together
we might mechanic with any tool clanking
on my belt because we love us some me,
or least, I believe I can believe you
when you tell me you want to see
my face damned with morning again, again—