a scrape deep in the chest
spoon sliding rough along the contours of
ceramic, they were shards even
before they were broken.
this kind of ash floats weightless on wind,
bears faint outlines of
tectonics resting in wait to erupt.
lines have been carved here,
deep in me, below the kiln of my lungs,
a trace and re-trace of paths onto map book,
fold on themselves as
waves, to hint at dissolution.
something curdled in me, i think,
turned sour by praise
or by lack thereof, equally likely.
the unlikely thing was me,
the gentle skyward curve of a lip,
hands outstretched,
fingertips sliding over smooth shards,
watching these fragments re-form.
my professor dedicates his life to studying
pottery shards from Pompeii,
like mine, those ancient remnants have breaking points.
i have trained myself to reform, then and now,
brush painstakingly at cracks until smooth,
peaceful as folk song, curling languid, silken, from car radio.
fine dust settles onto hood, into exhaust pipe,
all winds are just a deep inhale from
another place.

begin here, your hand at my cheekbone. these things take time.
the egg of a mayfly adheres after its slow, downward float
to a stone on the stream-bed,
edges nonexistent, as if expertly quenelled by rough, watery hands.
a current runs over my collarbone,
up through my neck and spilling into a waterfall over my jawline.
feel it in your fingers — it flows there too.
the very same water, caught in whirlpool.
your hands smooth over my skin,
and mayflies imagine their eventual emergence, from water, skyward.
their gills resemble the leaves they watch through liquid lens,
a flare and a taper, clustered in bunches along the branches,
floating during winter on the stream’s surface,
these shapes all echoed in their chests.
curl your hands around yourself.
feel your own lungs swell and contract, mirroring shapes you’ve never seen.
as they die, female mayflies drift to rest on the water’s surface.
translucent wings as rafts, slowly waterlogged and sinking down, again,
just as at birth.
you stare at your reflection, mine,
your eyes as two horizontal leaves. the rush of blood through your ears resembles
the curvature of current around jagged rocks.
as they breathe, tiny eddies of water swirl around and through the mayflies’ bodies,
enough to propel them forward,
up and into the air.