silk & saffron cylinders basking in the still light
thoughtlessly as a blue jay bathes in his bird bath
as a brave baby bites for his mother's bare breast
as i watch you from a house across, you stretch awake
your rib cage glimpses the light for a moment and
dissolves, disappears.

i knew i was unseeable first when i was five
watching my mother undress for him and then him and then him
and then again when i was fourteen when my eyes
were white as snow against the unlit room
but still my sister didn't-couldn't see me staring.

i'm a ghost, woman,
and I need to **** something
to make me live again