Flesh Sense

I must hope, disembogued, that her mouth’s smallish beads indifferent

in the corners can secrete themselves, hissing in a breath between lips made smaller

by the tightening of hunger: is it but a daub to tear at at first nothing, and then nothing prised

out, the kids stuffing themselves in, forbidden to lick their fingers even scrapping

for a bite of the carcass and those who, submitting to a new face and once in place

won’t show still the past? my kin thrusts out her bones—you’re a simulee to have yourself

in every moment of yourself, she says, even if such creatures share a mouth