and i am speaking in sentences that end as they began.

i never write people's names in my poems.

this way i can recycle old bodies
stacking you up against
endless metaphors of others.

this way i can remember new bodies
re-written over lines i have already read

lines i have already read.

(and i wait here
just beneath

that which

holds you open:

like sheets of paper
laid out across your stomach,
like palms).

this way i can keep my days calm
and separate

between the borders of these
little white pages

surprising myself
with the way every letter every word
every letter every word

somehow appear the same.