Last Body

I can’t leave my hurting skull

Or the rose apple opening inside me.

I’ll count the weeks, months,

Unfurling each numbered day in my hair.

Frost ribbons inside my brain,

Canals push up my leg.

I’m moving on

To what the world needs me to know.

I am the angel trapped inside the bullet.

I am the exit wound trapped inside the angel.

Am I the scarecrow

Perched at the end of the human trail.

I’ll palm cotton between my prayers

Until the universe has passed,

Waving down jellyfish

To volcano hours.

What force propels a bullet

From its chamber. Is it sourced by water

Trickling in a karst cave,

Or is it an angel’s gasp as she flees.

I can’t answer it all,

But my mask grows taller every year.