unscathed 

i used to have a friend who kept her tail.
i asked to see it but she declined. it was
rude of me to have asked. i only have
six fingers, the rest were bartered
to a police station in the new york
where i tried to explain i was just trying
to get home. sometimes when i ask
my gps to take me home it brings me to the cemetery
on the big hill in my hometown. 
i do not try to stop it. we used to watch
the gnarled finger tree hole up the moon
like a communion wafer. beneath us
the dead held each other all the same.
i am trying not to think of everything in terms
of loss. what limb you kept to paddle 
the boat up the creek. i of course have
fragments of you. a window in the house
that turns stained glass despite my protestations.
my left shoe always untied. that article 
is going around again that says children leave cell
inside their mothers & mothers inside their children.
we are either rosary beads for the thumbs
of trees or we are skipped stones. i try to feed
our sick animal. she will not accept the food
even from my hand. as a child my father
used to have a rock tumbler that he would use
to process river stones & sell them. they were
smooth as whales. the evidence of loss. contours
in the world belly. i do not want to be 
smooth but i do want to sleep in someone's pocket.
i wish i could lay the losses out on
a little blanket like a street vendor. then when
the night comes, curl up in them. roll myself. 
a reverse carpet man. open me. see what you find.