I dream a man I used

to love knifes clean

through the flesh of my name

out springs an orange dress

blood & kohl

he conjures my hair

it unfurls from the root

like a planted flag

 

sometimes my body fails

to revert to vessel

in these dreams

I become something else

something without edges

the point at which my forehead

touches the earth

or the unseen fist of gravity

bending light

 

sometimes I wake

before he drowns me

beneath the ocean

of his body

 

I kick myself toward the light

re-inhabit each nerve

each egg ripe

as a ruined palace

in the desert of my belly
my scars reinvent their knit ridges

& I am still made

of my own flesh

I unswallow the blade

from my own throat

tongue the clot of my name

in my mouth

smooth as a new tooth