Juvenile, the way lips wet the knuckle, how beak and feather fetch laughter from my

pit, when the weight of legs are no longer freeing. It must be youth that purloins woe

from my pores, folding skin over into a page of names. Finger to cheek and, foreign to my

own texture, I mistake feeling for touching. A dip above the jaw reminds me of a greeting

departed into absence; vowels trickle into open air, riding the draft of a breath and a half until

pavement bites mouth. Goodbye becomes native tongue, making loss the easiest part of remembrance

because when sunset tucks her legs onto the highway, I admit I don’t miss the sound of anything,

I loathe the creases. Endless: remains flaked onto a scalp of tendrils and stalks of childhood, time

for embrace, bracing for the time my hands grasp an absent body. Let me tell you a story of recovery.

Mother melted gold into my ears each night, our pores would overflow in the morning onto

tile floors. Once noon hit kitchen counter, her hands, blistered red, would collect the aureate into a sigh.