STANDING NAKED BESIDE ITS SKIN
(A SERIES OF SEQUENCES )

(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
under the chair.

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.

The light from the bathroom
throws itself into the room

falls just short of
the chair's legs.

The razor blade
slashes through flesh.

She bites the tip of
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.

The owl becomes the 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
nothing at all

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

Very few things sweeter
Than the fruit
Of goodness

For me to be alive I must eat.
For me to eat, things have to die,
And for what?--
An existence I can't even justify.