have you ever seen or felt
or pressed apart the lips
of dying girls who
23 years less of life
split tenderly–
wetly caving
into

         eyes
hair mouth
shoulders spine
a tiny breath
fluttering lids
tense cording of
sinew

dancing sharply
pulled sternly after
wrist
hands onto
scalp

the buzzing
of coarse
tightness
against lips(mylips)

and dies
one dying
final revolution
of ecstatic
breathing

(who
in her mounded purse

tastes of salt
sweet and

                              earths




?