For two hundred years people knew they were made of glass
and wouldn’t sit down on marble or brick, the unyielding
parts of their world. Ask Tchaikovsky or King Charles VI
about the fear of being touched, looping visions of your head
cracking off, fear of everything that moves. Yesterday I stayed
inside my room when I could, dressed myself in three layers,
drank hot water and light. I couldn’t tell you about my body,
how I kept waiting for flesh to fall off from cold mirror bones,
or how the air felt flat, pressed dry in a book, no water left
to keep the dead away. I couldn’t think of a way to tell you
how I’ve condemned myself for waxing dark, turning outside
my body, satellite self trying to understand that this bending
finger is mine, this is a structure I’ve had for years, red rot
and air. Ask the glass woman who pointed to a hospital window
and said Like that–I’m there, and I’m not there to explain
how the body tries to make itself disappear, how the opening
up and closing shut is in someone else’s hands, out of control.