I can’t claim to have been too surprised on hearing that my past
was on fire and I could only
save one thing. I couldn’t decide
between the time I read about an actor dying at the peak
of her earning potential and the time
we were all invited to join our employer’s annual
NO GAIN CHALLENGE, which incentivized remaining
within one percent of one’s weight each holiday season.
I couldn’t decide between how my boss
used to hover in the lunchroom, clocking the contents
of my sandwich, and the time you
called me HANSEL OR GRETEL, whichever got assigned
by the gingerbread witch to the cage; you could

never remember. At one lunch everyone was talking
about a pop star who would alter
her look all the time through color or cut. Often she wasn’t
recognizable right away. I’M HER RIGHT NOW,
I wanted to say and then rip off my face
for the reveal, like in  Mission: Impossible. But I wasn’t her,
though I too was always changing.
I was like the Ship of Theseus, if the rate of replacement
of the planks on the Ship of Theseus
was under one percent per holiday season, which it certainly might
have been; I never checked. The local industrial
smokestack vomited steam. The air was dry. The sun
was like an oven. Go on and get inside.

my girlfriend drives us south. There’s a smear
of hot pink on the asphalt. From the passenger’s seat
I twist my head back. Did you see that? Only a flash,
until a few miles later. Again, then again, then a whole

velvet deer burst on the shoulder, and now everything is pink.
She stares ahead and holds my hand. She has asked
me not to notice these things, but I am a glutton
for how quickly the body becomes something different.

Before we met, I imagined a wedding like this. But— 
not this. She stood with the other bridesmaids in champagne.
I followed their husbands, snuck away for hot wings with them
between the ceremony and reception. It was so strange.

The bride was so beautiful. Her family, so kind. The chicken?
The most delicious I have ever eaten, and that made it all
worse, as I jostled with the husbands over the succulent drumsticks,
startled by the unexpected ease of flesh sundered from bone.

Now, there’s a light rain. She stares ahead. The grey, the pink,
her hand—will we always unknow each other in this way?
I want the whole carcass. I want to roam the caverns of her body,
loving her like an animal howling its own name.

                Between letting go and setting free
There was a difference I assumed
                I was. Graceless. Arrogant. Venomous
As a point. Horsehair slacking. Bow
                Shaking from deep within. Air cut
Without a trace. There was faith, a drawing
                Close, closer, close enough, then

Too close. Hoping, missing, resuming—
                Into the shadows I had taken me
As far as I could. Soul. Soil. Silt. Sullied current
                I proved I could step into once
More. Forest. Mountain. Desert. Blood,
                My resource and recourse. While at war
In my mind, I went farther than I thought—

                Archer, I am my errors. Arching, I erred
In desire. Am I my target? Expect no mercy.
                For better or worse, whatever happens,
I’ll be even better. I’ll be even worse—
                Let’s go. Nobody is expecting us. Get ready.
Gone is the hour of ghosts over the gulf
                Like whales, a memory, breaching surface

From depths unknown, stuck in between
                Land and what is and what if and sea and
I suppose for air. A moment that wasn’t
                This, we turned on. Resplendent. Meet me
At the shore. I aim with my life to prove
                We can be happier than the ones we love.
The difference is distance, set. Crossed. Freed—