STANDING NAKED BESIDE ITS SKIN - SEQUENCE

(1)

A CHAIR SITS IN AN EMPTY ROOM

the woman unhooks
her shadow
drapes it over a chair

she plucks her reflection
out from the mirror
stashes it away

she looks into
the mirror's
nothingness

she strips off
her skin leaves it
on top of the chair

she
switches off
the light

the chair just
sits there
absorbing the darkness

the woman
becomes
her footsteps

light from the bathroom
throws itself into the room
falls just short of the chair's legs

the razor blade
slashes
through flesh

the bites
the tip off
her tongue

she watches her blood
whirlpool down the sink
(she does not stop to think)

washing away
the pain
washing away

this self
a chair sits
in an empty room

(2)

THE MOON REFUSES TO SHOW ITS FACE

an owl is the darkness
only its voice is visible
to the naked ear

it gives voice
to the darkness
the darkness says nothing

it lets
the owl
speak for it

the darkness transforms itself
into the owl
owl becomes darkness

the moon
refuses
to show her face

silence seeps back
the owl
says nothing

the darkness
says nothing
a human cries

(3)

MANY MOONS

she remembers an apple
standing naked
beside its skin

apple cut and cut and cut
like little slices of moon
fallen on the ground

the apple no longer a thing
to be eaten
now only a thing of fascination

the many scattered slices of moon
the earth a black sky
ants walking on the moons

she picks up one of the moons
licks it clean of ants and dirt
places it upon her tongue like a wafer

soon she remembers
nothing
nothing at all

her life the empty space
where she had cut herself
out of her photographs