She speaks to her own skin
as soon as her bedroom door
is shut and locked. Calls it a dead end,
calls it a driveway, calls it the time of day
when aging dogs wander away from their owners
to curl into themselves and leave. Not afraid
of what’s outside, maybe, but of the idea
that there might be something in there.
Something beckoning her to fold into herself
like flower petals in October.
Something ringing the doorbell
too late in the early morning, a Halloween
without any kind of charity. There is something
teeming there, and there is something healing here,
because skin endures like the sun rises every morning
in spite of what happened the night before:
not in ignorance, not to overshadow,
but to say, ‘Here, you want to be better,
and I will shine a little brighter while you do it.
Heal where I need to. Pave a pathway.
Light a lamp that glows
after I’m gone.’