thinking i would set the unlucky
cricket of my pulse down in his hand—
thinking yes! this is the hand! then my pulse
is like a cricket but could be,
anymore, the actual cricket—thinking
his palm could dissolve the latex bounce
of simile, which tells, finally,
what a thing is not and could give, to impulse,
form—thinking even if form is a kind of untruth,
its untruth is concave, a withness quivering
the arrows of his sight—thinking what
if my measure isn't sight but to collect and turn
sight back—thinking his hand, closing, could compress
the pulse into a lens—thinking change
does make the body precious—when his voice said baby (meaning
novelty) i was hearing blank slate, was already ironing myself out.
whose eyes then watched the white palm humming up the white parallel bands of my leg?
This poem was first published in Berkeley Poetry Review, Issue 51 in 2021.