it's a second body sometimes,
a kind of chandelier of eczema,
tumbling from my shoulders
like a ragged royal robe,
white, shining, drifting scales

and this time I wear it
as a familiar dress,
put on me or
grown on me,
a lifeless moss,
scabs without passion,
drooping, dragging,
not reaching far,
not covering, not enobling

for in the deep sky where my soul lives
I've found an island to touch on,
an island filled with a swirling climbing hole
which is a road in time.

and I keep flying up to the surface,
surface of what I can hardly say,
to feel the wind (or what) buffet
and whip us back and forth
on the edge.

somehow you're there on the island too
yet you're not here, are you?
you don't know that you're there,
you don't know that it's there.
Only I've found its rocks,
that say "Yes" when touched,
the road that flows.

And so I wear this ragged dress,
not quite white,
showing and engrossing all,
and I can't help but stoop.
I slouch around my soul in prayer,
to stay close to it.
and if it hurts, it hurts.
I can bear it.