33

the temptation to exist.

It is enough some nights
just to be
here / to shudder through the smelling salts.
A vast cold ocean. Mother

of pearl
eyelids (imagine a pocketknife folding

shut) while veins press
back from my wrist.

It is tempting
not to trace

a life through / more blue and more
exhausted / turning

urgently to its source.

/ /

If the broken shell
/ fragment as razor's edge didn't

cut back, what
still-living

form wouldn't the heel
willingly crush?