did you know that
i can only look at myself in shadow?
every day my silhouette
paces in circles before a covered mirror
i cannot bear to look at

but i can look at you
inside the bone garden of your chest
there in the wine dark viscera
i see myself reflected in oceans of sinew
in the fraying red thread unraveling

into a roadmap of capillaries and veins
this patchwork of life
sheared as short as a lamb’s first coat
by a silver scalpel
my firsthand glimpse of what we all become

i know one day my body will wilt in the sun
& i will be able to look—
my flesh will no longer remind me of fishhooks
but of the shine of fish scales
& i’ll think of you fondly underneath the light