Recording

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Living in a plain white-paper land;

everything used to crawl with life,

beetles rolled balls of dung,

worms curled frantic in my hand,

sand squeezed under my toes.

All of the skin of you,

fragrant, smooth, and hot,

real as stones under my feet,

these muscles, veins, and nerves,

tender skin under my nails.

I remember breezes.

I might be wood, or smoke,

a dream painted on alley walls,

a stain on asphalt,

iridescent black and brown,

tomes in a library,

books and books,

scrimshaw without bone,

above, blue so pale it might be white,

and my body, if I could still feel it,

would be something, just like this.