A thousand shades of hair
and kids all about your height
wearing death masks and new school clothes.
I leaked through torsos trying to get to you.
This Human Body brine.
Rooted crux
A stage where I watched an orchestra
casted with crow’s feet
liverspots
and dementia.
A maelstrom
made from limbs and gossip
pulled me under
and into the blue drink
I sunk.
On the concrete bottom
I saw you
copper quills suspended in cobalt current
and your swollen mask
you were pressing your face into.
I made you promise me
newsprint made a mistake.
and you recited back to me
overlooked facts of the scene and body
laughed because we were the only ones
clever enough to figure it out.
But when I asked you come back with me
you shook your head no
and I knew
under your death mask
I wouldn’t have recognized you.
