Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

by Michael Wasson

I wake to find my name

gone as another lost night I want

to salvage: & only to have

its dark teeth sinking

into my skin—: you enter me

through an opening in the sky of

the body like a face

in the moon falling slow &

moving its long blade-

like fingers to the mirror: this weight

I hear pressing down &

the image cracks: a body

standing—this me & you—a shadow

on the surface of a puddle: eyes

lit like wolves filled with only

winter: now let this body—let it

go: as though a breath wanted

to be saved, I part

my mouth into púuceyxceyxne

& into pieces

as I am: but a word at the lips

breaking into nothing

is the air that fills that soft never-

seen flesh of these lungs: breathe

one more time: for what we’ve lost—

my beloved ghosts—the sound of

a field after the war-

torn bodies have abandoned only

their tongues: & you behind

still breathing.