wet hands 

I left the shower with wrinkled fingers, again. 

Researchers say the wrinkles help me hold  

onto wet objects or stay grounded in wet  

terrain. They forget that I don’t have  

you to hold onto. What use for my wrinkles if you still slip away? 

What use for my wilted fingertips if you are the blood that leaves, my hands, yearning for yours? 

What use for stable footing if I want to  

be swept away?  

  

mist 

I left the shower once the mirror clouded, again.  

until the water was too hot, 

after I had fainted, again.  

Suppose I had not woken up, and suppose 

I had drowned there, in the too hot water.  

When the doctors have broken down 

the door, and they have entered into my painting, 

they won’t see themselves in the mirror:  

only clouded gossip, 

too hot water-colored 

wishes for their own breath, and mine own too. 

They, the researchers, the doctors, the mortician,  

will never see the truth in my mirror.  

They would never see that when I fainted, 

when I fell, 

I was caught, briefly, by the mist of your arms.