Cycles

A shifting inside me. My core

            fishlined

                         into air.

Here, belief is enough.

My legs can kick

            into wind, my arms

            can touch that blue sky.

**

I count blue pills and my mother

asks me what they are for.

When wet, they rain my fingers blue,

paint my insides a whole ocean.

The van slips from lane to lane.

The steering wheel is too big for her hands.

Give me some, she says, and I laugh.

**

                        The glowing lasso loosens

and inches me back

            to earth. In the pit of

                       my belly, the hardening

            of glass, the staircase

ending, my foot

            swinging down

                                into space.

            Tell me: do the crazies

            sink or float?

**

I press tin cans

            against my mouth

and ear. My voice

            tastes of metal.

What can a tin can hold?

**

Cause of death,

bipolar. Split, a voice

crackling underwater.

Half of what is said

is swallowed.

**

For days they bathed in water

dark with her body. Rinsed

their mouths with her. Think

of the missed calls and callers.

Think of what remained

in gaps between so many teeth.

**

            My throat is a tightrope

with feet drawing near.

My lungs, legless,

            caught in a bear trap.

**

Can this hold hair, a can

            of ashes clouded in water?

                       Can this hold an entire body?

                       Is belief enough?

**

Give me a bowl of glass

to swallow. I do

not know her name.

I am a thief, dreaming

wrapped in echoes.

I am no better,

chasing my own shadow

through water.

Each morning,

my mirror hopscotches

through opening

medicine cabinets.

I think it is myself I eat,

reflected in cereal bowls.

**

A wake,

            the wake of,

            waking:

To sleep, my mother

showed me how to pretend

I was at sea.

**

I remember the anchor.

I fall into a hundred hands,

all of them my own.