Each morning,
or late at night,
when difference
thins, I find bits
of cracked mirror
to reflect within:
a book, a memory,
a word, a look.
I cannot believe
this is a mistake,
yet purpose,
like the hope
of redemption,
eludes me.
I am no one;
even before I was
broken, I failed
to cohere. A soft
fear pulses like veins
near the thin surface
of my wrist. I watch
its blue throb into
my ravaged palms
like flash floods
through desert ravines:
the life line, heart line,
love line—as if the blood
can read a divination
past decades and decades
of dust and slow decay;
as if I could discover
a razor sharp enough
to cut the membrane
between night and day.
(December 31, 2023)
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