The Brooklyn Rail

They sought to erase from my face
all evidence
that I had lived

They used needles to do it. Extraction methods and plumping.

Ocean makes a slurry sound behind my head
a o sound

            It was silent as the atoms were gathering
            Then it got noisy

            Sound made the ocean make sound &

We found history on the Earth’s wrinkled face

*

seen a woman who rhymed with time

            does her decay
does her primordial radionuclide dress
and its disintegrating daughters
do time

*

when you peel off your dead skin to see the face of the world
            the already-dead go deathly pale
self is a god we walked through          I was an idiot It was a mistake
I believe something here
            What self?
I do not believe the man-made sky
            I think like a hero
            I think like a dog
I was looking for the real sky
I want more face, more mother
more atoms moving through the heart
            Get ready
I am taking man back for woman, mankind