XIV

 

I imagine this body, my body
As a sun country:

Rosettes in its ribs — red hibiscus stars
And mint-green macaws murmuring in the murumuru trees,
My skeletally-elegant arms.

A temple bell, melted down, becomes a steel bar
Lovebirds wrap their feet around it
In the way that a hand remembers how it felt,
stroking a bird’s sleekness.