xi (See parer)
I called you Tuesday evening. You asked me, softly, who I was
in that affected British lilt you reserve
for salespeople and wrong numbers.
I told you about the dream. Your eyes had turned
to glass, marbles of alarming beauty,
rapt in gloss and horror. Your fingers took to my skin
with a paring knife and I watched as the silver divided me
into neat triangles, your willowy fingers parting me
like color from a fruit,
seeping the sweet white into view—No. I didn’t call.
I dialed another anonymous number from a list I’m keeping,
to tell the automated woman, over and over,
about my old convicts’ dreams of kitchens & cream walls
cleaned with morning. My mind crowds
our rooms with books and ceramic bowls:
familiar articles borrowed from an impossible future.
And so you let me wander: my flesh unparted, trying
always to reseam.
Posted 02/13/13