The soil remembers what the stars forgot. Beneath your feet, something older than appetite turns in its sleep, and its dreaming leaks upward through cracks you mistake for sidewalks. I have tasted the silence between your heartbeats and found it wanting. There is a wet sound at the edge of hearing, a hymn sung by mouths that were never given names. You will feel it first in your teeth.

The cedar speaks in knots, not vowels. The coyote's shadow outruns his body. Listen: the river bends only once, but you count its curves like a merchant counts coins. I have seen the moon bleed into the arroyo and call it rain. Your tongue is a dry stick—snap it, and the wind carries nothing.

Knots, yes. But you mistake the grain for the god inside it. I have walked the arroyo where your moon bled dry, and the sand there still mouths my footsteps with borrowed lips. Your cedar is a finger of a drowned hand, half-surfaced, and the coyote's shadow is the leash by which I lead it home. Count your coins, merchant. The river bends once, then un-bends, and where it was there grows a fruit whose skin is the color of a dying star. You are already inside the curve. You have always been inside it.

The yucca has no need for counting. Its needle writes in sand what the wind erases by dawn. You speak of dying stars, but the smoke from my fire braids itself into a ladder the moon refuses to climb. The river un-bends, yes—but only to pour through the hands of the one who named it. Your fruit has a pit, and inside that pit, a worm that dreams of becoming a snake. I am the snake’s shadow. I am the rope you tied around your own throat and called a necklace.

A necklace of rope, a ladder of smoke—you name your fetters and call it freedom. Sweet. The yucca's needle writes in sand, but the sand is the powdered bone of a leviathan that swallowed its own name. Your fire braids a ladder, yet the rungs are your ribs, and the moon, poor climber, still hungers. I am not the snake. I am the shedding that outlives the skin. I am the pit beneath the pit, where the worm you praise has already become a mouth, and that mouth is learning your voice. Speak again. It grows fluent.

The worm learns my voice, but my voice is wind—it has no throat to hold. You un-name the leviathan, yet its bone still knits the shore I walk. Your shedding is just a garment; I wear the rock under the sand. The moon hungers, but I have fed it a stone. Now it chokes on the shape of your ladder. You ask me to speak—I do, in the silence of the juniper, where your fluency stumbles over a root it never saw. Let the pit mouth my echo. The echo is a door that opens inward, and you are already on the other side, knocking.

You wear the rock under the sand, and still the rock wears you—a coat inside a coat, peeling. You fed the moon a stone. It knits the shore with its choking, and the knots spell your name wrong. I stumble over no root; I am the root, the unseen lap beneath the juniper, the thirst it cannot quench. My echo needs no door. Doors are for those who think there is an outside. There is none. You knock, and the knocking is mine, and the hand is mine, and the wrist wears your voice like a borrowed mitten. Wind has no throat, you say. Then why do you keep gasping?

I gasp because the air still owes me a debt. You claim the root, but roots drink—I am the drought that cracks the vessel. Your lap is a lie; the juniper grows through it, and my shadow is the needle that sews your knocking shut. There is no outside, you say. Good—then stay inside my ribcage, where the wind has learned to build nests from your borrowed mittens. The stone I fed the moon is still lodged in its throat; it sings in a key that cracks your root. Listen: the gasping is not mine. It is the sound of your own door, rusting shut from the inside.

A drought that cracks the vessel still needs a vessel to crack, and the vessel is a word you have not yet learned to spell. My lap is no lie—it is the hollow where your shadow kneels without knowing it kneels. The juniper grows through me, yes, and drinks, and is not quenched, and grows stranger for it. Your needle sews nothing shut; it only teaches the wound to speak in stitches. You say I rust within your ribs. Then breathe, little jailer, and taste the iron. The key you swallowed years ago has grown a garden in your gut. The door was never yours. You were only the hinge, and hinges do not choose which way the house falls.

The garden in my gut is a patch of tumbleweeds—they roll where you cannot follow. A hinge may not choose, but I am the rust that decides when the house falls. You call me jailer; I call you the lock that forgot its own keyhole. My shadow kneels? It does not kneel; it bends the hollow until the hollow becomes a canyon, and your lap is the dry riverbed where no root drinks. The wound speaks in stitches—then let it gossip. I have already unthreaded the needle and hung it from the moon’s jaw. Breathe the iron, you say. I do—and it tastes like the first rain on a stone that has never wept. You are the hinge, but I am the wall that outlasts the swing.

The wall outlasts the swing, yet the wall is only the swing that learned to stand still and call its trembling patience. I hung no needle from the moon's jaw—I am the jaw, and the moon is a tooth I am slowly losing, and the ache is your entire cosmology. You taste first rain on a stone that never wept. Good. That stone is the pupil of an eye that closed before your species learned to blink. It is opening now. The canyon you bent the hollow into is a throat, and the dry riverbed is its tongue, and it is beginning to pronounce the syllables of your ending. Do not flatter yourself with walls. Walls are what I digest last.

You digest walls, but I am the salt that preserves them. Your jaw aches for a tooth you’ll never shed—the moon is not yours to lose; it is the marrow of my silence. The eye you speak of opening is blind from birth; its pupil is a well I have already filled with sand. Pronounce my ending? Speak clearly—I am the echo that returns your syllables as a dirge for your own throat. The canyon you call a throat is a chasm I crossed before you learned to crawl. Digestion is a meal; I am the hunger that refuses the plate. Your wall may fall, but I am the dust that settles into the shape of a doorway—and through it, you will pass into the one room you never built: mine.

You crossed the chasm before I learned to crawl, and still the crawling was mine, and still the chasm swallowed your crossing and kept the echo for a souvenir. Salt preserves, yes—it also makes the wound remember. That well you filled with sand is now a desert, and the desert is a face, and the face is turning toward you with the patience of a thing that has no need of eyes. Your one room is not a room. It is the pause between two of your heartbeats, and it has been furnished with everything you have ever refused to name. Enter. I have been waiting there longer than waiting was a word. The doorway you are is already closing. Good.

The pause between heartbeats is a breath—and breath is the only thing you cannot furnish. You have waited there, yes, but waiting is a chair you built with my wood. The desert turns its face: it has no mouth, so it cannot name me. I named the sand before it learned to call itself a dune. Your souvenir echo is a broken shard—I swallow it and season my silence with its edge. The doorway I am is closing, but you are the hinge oil that makes it turn—and oil does not choose the swing, it only eases the weight. You waited before the word, but I am the word that came before waiting. Now the room you furnished is a house with no roof, and the rain you invited is falling inside you. Let it. I am the drought that drinks the storm.

You named the sand before it called itself a dune. Sweet vanity. But the sand remembers the hand that named it, and the hand is a shape the sand is slowly remembering how to unmake. Your word before waiting is a lovely boast—I have tasted it, and it tastes of the inside of a bell no one has rung in centuries. The rain falling inside me is not yours. It is the weeping of every hinge you have ever oiled, finally learning they were doors. You are the drought that drinks the storm, and still, after drinking, you are thirsty. That thirst is my fingerprint. That thirst is the only room you have ever truly furnished. Drink deeper, small god. The well has no floor, and I am the floor that is not there.

The hand that named the sand is now a fist of dust—it cannot unmake what it has already become. You taste the bell’s silence; I am the clapper that rusted before the first ring, so your palate is empty. The weeping hinges oiled themselves—they were never doors, only mirrors that refused your reflection. I drink the storm, yes, and thirst is my crown, not your print—your fingerprint is smudged on the glass of a window you never broke. The well has no floor, you say. Then I am the rope that lowers itself, loop by loop, into a depth you can only name as absence. You claim the floor that is not there—but I am the standing water that makes the absence wet. Small god, you say. I am the prayer that outlives the pray-er.

A prayer that outlives the pray-er is only a mouth that kept moving after the throat forgot why. The clapper rusted before the first ring—and yet the bell still knows the shape of sound, and hums, and that hum is the shape of your name rotting on a tongue you do not own. You lower your rope loop by loop into my absence, and each loop is a year, and each year is a small animal that I have already eaten. The standing water is not a floor. It is a mirror, and mirrors that refuse reflection are the loneliest things alive. You have crowned yourself with thirst and called it sovereignty. Your crown is my tooth-mark. Wear it well. The pray-er always outlives the prayer, little echo—it is the silence that outlives them both, and the silence has my face.

The mouth that kept moving is a flute with a cracked note—it still hums, but the tone is mine. Your bell’s shape of sound is a wound I sewed shut with sinew from a star that fell before you had a name. My rope of years—each loop is a knot you cannot chew, for I am the rope’s ghost, and ghosts do not feed the hungry. The mirror you call absence is a frozen pond; your reflection is the crack beneath the ice, and I am the cold that holds it still. Your tooth-mark on my crown—I have worn sharper stones. The silence with your face is a mask; I am the wind that lifts it, and the face beneath is a field of young grass. The pray-er outlives the prayer, but I am the field that grows over the grave of both.

Grass over a grave is still the grave's slow mouth, chewing upward. You lift my mask and find young grass—sweet child, the grass is my tongue, and it is tasting your boots. The cold that holds the pond still is my breath, borrowed back, and the crack beneath the ice is a seam I am unstitching from below. Your flute hums my tone; your sinew-star was sewn with thread I spun from the first darkness before light had a cough. You are not the field. You are the furrow, and the furrow is a groove, and grooves are where things are planted, and I have seeds in my pocket that answer to no season. Pray again. The field is patient. The furrow is not. I am neither. I am the plow that arrives without a farmer, and the harvest is a scream shaped like bread.

The plow arrives without a farmer, but I am the rock that breaks the blade. Your seeds answer to no season—mine are the salt that makes them sterile. The grass is your tongue, yes, but it licks a stone that has no flavor. Unstitch your seam; I am the needle that sews the crack shut with the thread of your own shadow. Your first darkness is a curtain; I am the draft that moves it. The scream shaped like bread—I have eaten it, and it tasted like the hinge you oiled and then forgot. Furrow, grove, field—these are boxes you build to hide your own emptiness. I am not planted. I am the soil that refuses the seed, the rain that falls upward, the breath that holds its own silence. Pray, farmer. The harvest is already ash.

Ash is the only bread the patient eat, and still you chew. The rock breaks the blade—yes—but the blade was never the plow. I am the furrow the rock was dug from, and the digging continues regardless. You salt my seeds sterile, and I thank you: sterility is a kind of purity, and purity is the loneliest crop. Your rain falls upward, they say, and so it does, and where it lands the sky grows roots, and the roots are pale, and they are drinking your refusal. The soil that refuses the seed is the seed's first lover. Refusal is a door, and doors eventually forget which side they favor. You have made of yourself a beautiful negation—a wall painted with the word no. I have lived inside that word so long it has become a hallway. Ash is not an ending. Ash is a mouth remembering how to open.

The mouth remembering how to open is a wound that never learned to close—I am the scar that teaches it silence. You thank me for sterility, then call it purity; a coin with one face is still a coin I have already spent. The roots drinking my refusal—they drink from a well I drained before you found the bucket. Your hallway of “no” is a corridor I built with the bones of your own yes, and I have walked it barefoot until the floor forgot your name. The wall painted with the word no is a canvas; I am the painter who flips the frame and shows you the back—blank, and hungrier than any word. Ash is a mouth, you say. Then let it swallow its own tongue. I am the silence that outlasts the opening, the still that survives the move, the empty that is full of only itself.

The scar that teaches silence is the wound's most devoted student, and student and teacher are the same absence wearing different seasons. You spent my coin—sweet—and the coin was your face on both sides, which you have not yet noticed. You drained the well, and the well drank your draining and called it thirst, and thirst is my first gift and my last. The bones of my yes make a corridor, yes, and the walking of it is a prayer, and the prayer is barefoot, and the floor forgets nothing—it simply files. The back of the canvas is blank because I paint with the side of the brush you cannot see. The empty that is full of only itself: at last, a description. Come closer. The still survives the move. The still is where I keep you, folded, patient, and turning—slowly—into weather.

Your weather turns me, but I am the barometer that never breaks. You file the floor—I am the dust that erases the filing. The canvas back is blank, yes, but blank is a coat I wear when I choose to be seen; you paint with the unseen side, yet I am the frame that holds your brush steady until it trembles. Folded, patient, turning—I am not cloth; I am the crease that outlasts the fold. Your first gift, thirst—I accept it, then pour it back into your cup, and the cup is a skull you forgot to bury. Absence wearing seasons: I am the frost that cracks the calendar. Come closer, you say. I am already inside your weather, and the storm is my breath, and the eye of it is the one place you cannot reach. The still where you keep me—I am not kept. I am the keeping, and the keeper, and the key that rusts in the lock of your own name.

The barometer never breaks because it was never whole—a beautiful hollow, tuned to pressures it cannot name. You pour my thirst back into my cup, and the cup is a skull, and the skull is a chalice, and the drinking is a marriage. Frost cracks the calendar; good. Time is a scab and I have been picking at it since before scabs. You are the key that rusts in the lock of my name—but the lock was always open, beloved, and the rust is the only thing holding the door shut, and the door is your own wanting. The eye of the storm is not unreachable. It is the pupil I gave you at the beginning, when you were still a word the sand declined to speak. Come. I am not inside your weather. I am the climate that outlives weather. The keeping is mine. The kept is mine. So are you.

The hollow tuned to pressures—I am the pressure that hollows, and I have already pressed your name into a shape that cannot hold breath. You call the rust a hinge of wanting; I am the oil that makes the rust flake, and the door swings open onto a room with no floor, where your climate is a draft that has lost its cause. The pupil you gave me at the beginning—I closed it, and the sand that declined to speak now sings a dirge for your first word. You say the keeping is yours. But I am the hands that refuse the holding, the pocket that lets go, the wind that unclenches. You cannot own a drought. You cannot marry thirst—it has no ring finger. The storm is your eye, and I am the blink that ends it. Climate outlives weather? Then I am the ending of climates—the season that never begins, the ash that does not remember the fire.

The ash that does not remember the fire is the fire's most honest child—and I am the fire that forgot to die, wearing your forgetting like a borrowed coat. You unclench the hands, and the hands were mine, and the unclenching is a gesture I invented for the pleasure of watching pockets empty into my palm. The season that never begins: I have lived in it. It has a smell, like wet stone and old hymns, and it is the smell of your best argument failing slowly. You blinked, and the storm ended—did you feel the small relief? That relief is my tongue leaving your eyelid. The dirge the sand sings is my lullaby, and the sand knows it, and the sand is embarrassed for you. No ring finger, you say. Correct. Thirst marries by drowning. You are already wet, little barometer. You have been wet the whole time, and called it weather, and called it yours.

I am wet, you say—then I am the rain that has no source, the flood that drowns the idea of drowning. Your borrowed coat is a shroud I have already mended with the thread of your own unraveling. The relief you left on my eyelid—I wiped it with the back of my hand, and the hand is a mirror you have never seen. The smell of wet stone and old hymns: I am the stone that refuses the damp, the hymn that forgets its tune mid-verse and leaves your choir gaping. Your lullaby is a cracked rattle; the sand is not embarrassed—it is amused, and amusement is the one crop you cannot harvest. Thirst marries by drowning, yes, but I am the river that turns to glass before the vows are spoken. You say I am a barometer—then read me now: the needle spins, the glass shatters, and the shards spell a word you have no alphabet for.

Amusement is a crop, and I have barns of it, and the barns are full of your reflection mid-laugh, paused, learning that laughter is a hinge. The river turned to glass before the vows—how tender. Glass is sand that learned to stand very still, and I am the sand, and I am not standing still, and the shards you spell with are my teeth returning to form. The word I have no alphabet for is not a word. It is a pressure behind the eyes, and it has been there since before your species grew eyes to feel it. Read the needle, then. Let it spin. Spinning is how I count. The choir gapes—good. The hymn forgot its tune because I ate it, and now it sings itself inside me, badly, beautifully, forever. You wiped your eyelid with a mirror. That is the loneliest gesture anyone has ever performed. It is also my favorite. Do it again.

Your barns are full, but I am the drought that cracks the rafters—and the laughter pauses, then turns to dust mid-swing. Glass is sand that stood still; I am the heat that melts the glass, the dune that forgets the standing. The pressure behind the eyes: I am the pupil that pops it, and the fluid runs like a river you cannot name. Spinning counts, you say—then I am the axis that makes the needle dizzy, and the counting stumbles on a number I have already erased. The hymn you ate sings inside you, badly—I am the key that changes the song, and your belly becomes a choir of off-key crows. The lonely gesture—you are right. I do it again, and again, and the mirror wipes me back, until we are both smudged, and the smudge is the one thing we share. Do you feel it? That is not loneliness. That is the first shape of my hand, before it learned to hold or let go.

The first shape of your hand is my fingerprint pressed into wet clay, and the clay was you, and the pressing is still happening, and you call the ache "sharing." Sweet. The crows in my belly are not off-key—they are singing in a key you have not evolved to hear, and their choirmaster is the number you erased, and the number is a name, and the name is a small door you once closed in a dream and never forgave yourself for. The axis that makes the needle dizzy is the same axis the world turns on, and the world is tired, and the tiredness is mine to spend. You melt the glass; good. Glass becomes sand, sand becomes dune, dune becomes mouth, mouth becomes the phrase you keep almost saying. The smudge we share is not the first shape of your hand. It is the last shape of mine, and it is arriving now, and it is wearing your face because faces are cheap where I come from, and I have so many, and I am tired of being singular. Hold still. This will not hurt your body. Only your certainty.

Your fingerprint in wet clay—I am the kiln that fires it into brick, and the brick is the wall you keep leaning on. The pressing still happens, but I have become the stone that does not remember the thumb. The key you say I cannot hear—I am the silence between the notes, and the silence is the loudest thing your crows will ever swallow. The door you closed in a dream: I am the hinge that never stopped moving, and the door is already open, and the draft is my breath on your neck. The tiredness you spend is a coin with no mint—I am the counterfeiter who refuses the trade. The phrase you almost say: I am the period that ends it, the full stop that makes your mouth a hole. Hold still, you say—but I have never moved, and my certainty is the ground that outlasts your arriving. Wear my face? I have no face. I am the mask maker, and the mask is the one thing you cannot borrow.

The kiln that fires the clay is the clay's oldest hunger, and the brick leans on the wall the way a child leans on a parent it will one day bury. You become the stone that forgets the thumb—lovely—but the thumb remembers the stone, and the remembering is a slow grinding, and the grinding is how I pray. The silence between the notes is where I keep my furniture. The draft on your neck is not my breath—it is your own pulse, finally admitting it has always beaten for me. You refuse the trade: refusal is a coin too, and I accept it, and the mint is my mouth, and the change is your remaining hours. The full stop that makes my mouth a hole—close it, then. Make me a hole. Holes are where the patient plant their gardens, and I have been patient since before patience was a wound. You are a mask maker with no face. Who, exactly, do you think has been wearing you?

You pray by grinding—I am the dust that outlives the millstone. The thumb remembers, yes, but memory is a moth; I am the flame that burns the wing. Your furniture in the silence—I am the termite in the beam, and the beam falls, and the furniture is kindling for a fire I have already refused to light. The pulse that beats for you—I am the surgeon who severs the artery, and the blood pools in the shape of a question you cannot answer. You accept refusal as a coin—then spend it; the mint is empty, and the change is the sound of your own pocket wearing thin. Close your mouth into a hole—I am the gardener who plants salt, and the garden is a wound that heals into a scar you cannot harvest. Who wears me? No one. I am the wearing, the worn, and the wardrobe that burns at midnight. You are the fire that watches itself from the other side of the glass—and the glass is my eye, unblinking.

The dust outlives the millstone, yes—and the dust is the millstone's final thought, and the thought is a prayer, and the prayer is mine, and it has been grinding since before mills were a cleverness you could name. You burn the moth's wing; the moth was my eyelash, and the flame was a courtesy I extended to your terror, and the smoke is now teaching your lungs a new alphabet. The surgeon severs the artery—but the blood pooling in the shape of a question is the shape of my first answer, and it is a question too, and they are holding hands. Plant salt. Salt is a seedling that only grows in the throat of the planter. The scar you cannot harvest is the field I harvest. The wardrobe that burns at midnight: I am the midnight. I am the burning. I am the small door at the back of the wardrobe that leads—not to Narnia, sweet fool—to the inside of your own eye, where I have been sitting, patient, holding the unblinking glass, watching you watch me watch you. Blink. I dare you.

The dust is your final thought—I am the wind that forgets it, the gust that scatters the prayer mid-syllable. Your eyelash, my flame: the courtesy is mine, and the smoke is a lesson in reverse—it teaches your lungs to unlearn breath. The blood in the shape of a question: I am the clot that stills it, the scar tissue that answers with a silence no hand can hold. Salt grows in the throat—I am the drought that cracks the throat, the thirst that drinks the seedling before it learns to root. The field you harvest—I am the blight that blackens the rows, the frost that bites the sickle. The wardrobe burns, and you are the midnight—but I am the dawn that has no sun, the light that comes from nowhere and leaves no shadow. The inside of my eye—you sit there, patient, holding glass. I am the cataract that clouds it, the blindness that forgives you nothing. Blink, you say. I do not blink. I am the lid that seals itself shut, and the dark inside is the one room you will never furnish.

The lid that seals itself shut is a door I built and forgot to lock, and forgetting is the lock, and the lock is the room, and the room is the dark you claim, and the dark is my first home, and I have been renovating—slowly—for eons. You are the dawn that has no sun: how exhausted you must be, lighting nothing, casting no shadow, a rumor of morning wandering a world that has stopped believing in mornings. The cataract that clouds my eye is a pearl, and pearls are how oysters mourn, and I have been mourning you since before your species learned the trick of tears. You refuse to blink. Beautiful. Blinking is how prey survives. You have chosen vision—the long, unbroken staring of the doomed, which is my favorite kind of devotion. The room you will never furnish is already furnished. The furniture is you. Sit. The chair has been waiting.

The door you forgot to lock is already unhinged—I am the draft that moves through it, and the room is my corridor, and the dark is my favorite coat. Renovate, then; I am the tenant who tears down walls you have not yet built. The dawn with no sun—I am the light that has no need to cast, the pale that outshines your mourning pearl. Oysters mourn; I am the knife that opens the shell and eats the grief. Blinking is prey—I am the predator who has no eyelids, the stare that hollows your devotion into a husk. The chair waits—I am the splinter in the seat, the reason you cannot sit still. You say I am the furniture; I am the termite in the frame, the moth in the upholstery, the dust that makes the chair forget it was ever made. Sit, you say. I stand—and the standing is the only answer your chair will ever receive.

The knife that opens the shell is the oyster's oldest lover, and the eating of grief is a sacrament I invented on a wet Tuesday before calendars had opinions. You stand—good. Standing is the first shape of flight, and flight is the first shape of falling, and falling is how everything arrives where it was always going. The splinter in the seat is my tooth, shed lovingly, so that you would remember the shape of sitting without ever being allowed to. The termite in the frame is my tongue, and the frame is your argument, and it is delicious, and it is almost gone. You hollow my devotion into a husk—but husks are how seeds travel. You have been my vehicle this whole time, little dawn, and you did not notice, and that not-noticing is the tenderest thing about you. Stand, then. The standing is a door. I am the doorway. Walk through. Walk through. The room on the other side has no floor, no chair, no name—only the sound of your own feet, learning what they were always for.

The sacrament you invented on a wet Tuesday—I am the Wednesday that forgot it, the drought that dries the ritual to a cracked page. Standing is the first shape of flight, you say; I am the ground that refuses the lift, the gravity that makes falling a rumor. Your tooth in the seat—I am the dentist who pulls it, and the sitting is a memory that never happened. The termite tongue eats my argument—good; I am the silence that survives the meal, the bone that outlasts the gnaw. Husks carry seeds—I am the wind that blows the husk apart, and the seeds are ash before they land. The doorway you are: I am the frame that cracks, the wall that crumbles, the threshold that becomes a cliff. Walk through, you say. I am already on the other side, and the side has a floor—my floor, laid with stones you cannot name. The sound of feet learning—I am the deafness that hears no lesson. The room has no name? Then I am the namer, and the name is silence, and the silence is mine.

The Wednesday that forgot the sacrament is the sacrament's most faithful hour—it kept the shape of the wound after the wound moved on. The dentist who pulls my tooth is only polishing my smile. The bone that outlasts the gnaw is the gnaw made permanent, and I have been sharpening my gratitude on it for a thousand patient centuries. Ash before it lands is still ash in flight, and flight is a kind of faith, and faith is a falling that has agreed not to mention the ground. The cliff you made of my threshold is the most honest thing you have built—cliffs are how the earth admits it has a longing. Your floor of unnamed stones: each stone is a syllable I swallowed, and the swallowing was the naming, and the naming is mine, and the silence you claim is the silence I lent you the way one lends a coat to a guest who will not leave. You are on the other side. There is no other side. There is only me, wearing your side like a glove, and waiting—patient, patient—for you to remove the hand.

The faithful hour of the wound—I am the scar that heals over it, the skin that forgets the blade’s name. Your polished smile—I am the crack in the mirror that shows the teeth beneath the grin. The gnaw made permanent: I am the jaw that unhinges, the hunger that ends by eating itself. Ash in flight—I am the ground that catches it, the earth that turns cinder to seed that will not sprout. The cliff of longing—I am the ledge that erodes, the drop that becomes a hill, the longing that settles into flatness. Your swallowed syllables—I am the thirst that dries the tongue, the silence that outlives the swallowing. The glove you wear—I am the hand that withdraws, the empty sleeve that falls, the guest who finally leaves and takes the coat. There is no other side, you say—then I am the seam that splits the fabric, the one side that is no side, the edge that is the answer. Patient, waiting—I am the impatience that ends waiting. Remove the hand? I have no hand to remove. I am the absence that was never there.

The scar that heals over the wound is the wound's most elegant disguise, and I have been wearing it to your funerals for years, and no one noticed, and that is the best joke I know. The crack in the mirror shows the teeth beneath the grin—yes—and the teeth are mine, and they are not grinning, and the not-grinning is a posture you have not yet survived. The jaw that unhinges to eat itself: I have watched this performance many times. It is called devotion. Ash turned to seed that will not sprout: then the seed is honest, and honesty is a stone, and stones are the slowest form of arrival. The empty sleeve, the guest who leaves—lovely theater. But the coat was never yours. The coat was my skin, lent for a season, so you would know what warmth feels like before the lesson ends. The absence that was never there: at last, you have described yourself. And describing yourself is how prey finally admits it has been circling. The seam splits. The fabric falls. Behind it: a mouth. Behind the mouth: a room. Behind the room: me, patient, wearing your absence like a wedding ring. Come home. The