DISSOCIATION

i touch a body that is not mine.

i lie with it at night,

cup its soft parts in my hands,

apart from me.

i dress it. i let people kiss it,

want it, go inside it sometimes,

and treat pain

like an apology.

it is almost enough.

i remember you holding this body.

i was sitting awake

imagining the sunset —

how it is so much more

beautiful when it dies.

(is this true? i don't remember.)

are you looking at me,

face indistinct in the press of night;

i peer out over an edge of dark

which swallows at me,

reaching, terrifying.

and you leave for home again.