you’re the sort of person
who cuts their fingers against
spiral notebooks

too soft, too shallow–
a reflection found by
Narcissus after an autumn shower

where even he could not
drown himself in your embrace

but you’ve only ever known hollow
things:
the quill of a plucked feather,
the darkness behind your eye-sockets,
the smile concealed by your teeth

it feasts upon you, this emptiness
like a chilopod’s unrhythmic gait against
your brain–
scooping up the patterned sulci
with its hungry pincers
until paradoxically, nothing, nihil
remains;

so how could you ever know
enough affection to
perform an intimacy like
death?