Say you plant carmine velvet between my shoulders & break glass
like fertilizer on my skin. Say I must count cells & watch
small deaths & strain skin as cheesecloth & catch
the pieces. I am a hoarder trying to salvage pieces. Say I am
just trying to fill in the lines. Say Denver is still Colorado
even without the woods and the cliffs. Say I want to gut
myself like a pomegranate & wring out the juice & drink
my body dry & pee into a cup & do it again. Say an outlaw
has put a gun to my neck & I try to turn blood into bone
& keep myself from cracking like eggshells & spilling tissue
upon tissue. Say I am too heavy to carry. Say the radio is tuned
to static. Say there is no glue gun, no iodine. Say there are only
two sticks & friction turns to fire & say I once watched a surgeon
cauterize veins. Say I had to. I could.
