Pen marked the footpaths
of the incisions to your
skull they planned to make the
following week in the hope
they could save you. It was
so strange to see you head
half-shaved and dashed with
ink lines, as if the topography
of you were so easy to
trace. We draw ourselves
out, lives in complicated lines,
but perhaps we are quite
simple after all. I wondered
then if this would change
you, if the you I knew
would be cut upon and
turn out not to be
you at all. We
are so fragile in our
assertions, though we claim
to be so strong. It feels
wrong that we could have
ever been so sure.
On fitful nights I
imagine what would
happen if they reassembled
your jigsawed skull differently,
or solved the puzzle of you
another way. That man
with lines mapped on bone
became so distant to me
in those moments, though
the infinitesimal accuracy of barely
millimeters foretold of
steady hands and inroads
many times gone.
A week, and I’ve already lost you.
In the same room I
wake up as you go under,
and I anticipate the
strangeness I will meet
when deconstruction is done.
Your hair will grow back a
poppyfield to cover all this day
has exposed. The part of you
they take will be my memory.
Together in reconstructed trust
we will grow old.
