Outside the New Body

One day I woke up in a new body

one that contained another and it made

me dizzy Now you pull your hand from your

mouth as if to show me something I've known

never

Like those birds carrying mouthfuls

of steam all the stark winter months I held

you in my body long as I could Weighted

then with sadness too my fear

you

might dissipate a fever brief and

untethered as the man I saw dancing

wrapped in a bearskin rug head passing through

its teeth, its tender jaws I had never held

anyone so close

your eyes inside my

eyes tongue inside my tongue Now when I cup

your sleeping face against the bow of my

shoulder arrow notched I am just waiting

one more moment

before I let you go

I know the quiver of your heart is out-

side the inside of me What to do with

this new body you left behind the light

that streams through its too-thin walls of fraying silk?

Source: All Its Charms (BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org, 2019)