/merrillcole/

 

The new hands,

the gold ones, no,

you will not wear them.

  

The accents ringed through air—

spiders—

reticence and ice.

  

We do not twitch

and spoil this:

those imitations, the soft ones,

how they watch.

  

Two ribbons,

the green one, the black one,

draperies of the omitted.

  

And I, headless,

my torso

perfect traceless white.

  

The prisons of jewelry

and the thimble eye.

  

It is wrong, the wooden

button’s lie, that some day

the limbs will

crease and we will walk.

  

We shall leave the glare,

The spasm in mirrors.

  

But part by part.

And the decisive

amputation scissors.

  

The fingers that withhold.

  

Envy’s empty boxes,

to discard every piece of them.

And the promise.

The severity.

  

Five severed lies.

 

Action, Yes 1:10 (Summer 2009).