We, As Other People
       

We've been very happy in the small open area
we named alter. When we lay down
it is a fragile offering, ellipses of arms,
galaxies of fox-light hairs, moving,
a division between tremble and bristle.

This is what other people do in the dark.

Sometimes, they let light in and the scen
e shifts. There are occasions for fire,
kindling as mirror, candles, too, for them-
bodies without growing dis-ease, anchored
to luck, devouring wishless time. Others
are fragrant with each other, bits
of raspberries wait on their tongues.

Not us. Ours is the thumbtack mapping
where in my body the image darkens, where
under inverted triangles of breast meeting breast
the roundness grows cloudy. We live, devour
by recent scans, which we will continue
to hang here, this museum of us, until alter
becomes shrine, becomes definition for a new
lover. Here were other people, who were us, before you.

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Copyright © 2017 Kelli Allen All rights reserved
from Imagine Not Drowning
C&R Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission