Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
Awake again, I find my name as
vanished as a midnight I want
to salvage. To have those black teeth sinking back
into my skin—you enter me
through an opening in the sky
of my body like a face,
a moon behind me falling slow
& moving its fingers to a mirror made
of the window above my bed. I hear the weight of its life
pressing down & the image
cracks. A figure stands
in a gown of blued smoke—this me
& you—a shadow laid over
the surface of a puddle. Its eyes
lit up like those
of wolves brimming with winter. So let this body. Let it go:
as though a breath
wanted to be saved, I part my mouth into
púuceyxceyxne & into pieces
as I am. But language between the lips
shrapneled into air is all that ever touches
the never-seen
pink of my lungs. I breathe in & breathe out. For what
we’ve lost—my dear
ghosts. The sound of the field
long after the war
From Swallowed Light by Michael Wasson. Copyright © 2022 by Michael Wasson. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.