Plenty of Room
—for Claire, 1/20/2021

Bone and air,
my beautiful body,
how I miss you,
how I am you,
how I unbecome you.

How I mend you
with stints and circuits.
How I die, piecemeal.
How I watch myself with
an ice sculpture’s rue
deliquesce.
How I struggle
for balance
one-footed
on time’s steel wire,
a wild umbrella in my hand.
How I forget to breathe

and remember to breathe.
That’s where love lives,
in the breath,
right next to the roses
and the myrrh and the musk,
and you: the scent of you,
remembered even as
this quick, wounded heap
of tourniquets and plasters
and acetaminophen,
awakens to every reason
I have to keep thinking.

Come, engineers.
Come, surgeons.
Come, silicone
and motherboards
and transplants.
There is plenty
of room
in this bone
and this air
for desire.

—

Cards drawn—

Hueso: What are your organs plotting?
Aire: To cease loving, simply plug your nose.
Hueso: Dashed upon the rocks, mended with gold.