my ribcage is a mark of hands that held it first

my waist has a wreath engraved like tallymarks

of chipped skin

an erasure quilting the gaps

raising it to a better part of a lessened body

but i look back with dolphin eyes leaping out

of the water like commas that become spaces

but the blood spilt by the fist still gurgles in it

long after withering in the scent of its own decay

flesh pricked like a lego-strip that fits in

then falls apart for a new design

the busy dinner clinks laughing temple bells

reminder— to lick again the sweet sweat off

the stiff upturned palms of songs sticking out

of the corpse-heap of memorized noises

—schedule for later

now the sphinx-hole of the spine-up book reads me

wherever inked the page becomes a magnifying glass

my tongue page-turns mango-pulp-fiction

a footnote of rawness in an otherwise spread of sweet

after all

even words are used to soar somewhere

~ ajay

10/4/2021