scaffolds

Last night I had a panic attack about my IS. If that wasn't bad enough, I seem to be developing real insomnia. Waking up absurdly early that morning didn't help. I lay in bed for about two hours feeling vaguely frustrated, and then I got up and wrote down a list of all the possible professions I could go into in the future, between graduation and the fruit of my comic-drawing career. The list is pitifully scanty. And then I wrote three strange poems.

The last one I wrote still scares me in a very existentialist way.



Scaffolds

I have wide cheekbones:

When I was a child,
they could not be seen
because my cheeks pillowed
about the bones:

But now they have hollowed
and I can gather skeins
of skin
about them like a sweater,
and feel their hinges quiver
when I speak.

I can feel my mouth
through the hollows
of my cheeks.
About the cheekbone is
your smile, and
its own metaphysics.

It amazes me
to think that we are whole persons,
when it is our bones
that are alive.