Lying under the moon, your chest brushes against the dark

like a swollen eyelid. Through a lack of skin, the light burrows,

planting its white lesions, wolf teeth.  I am tempted to understand

this as beauty: a pale mouth feeding on the body even

when the mind has left. For interfaces, the reflection of light

is either specular or diffuse—either retaining energy, or losing

image. I am wondering if we are seen

only because we reflect the shapes of others.

So it follows, the night drains your white-

fuzzed organs as if suckling the brackish tongues

from oysters. Was it you who said:

not yet, I can die anytime

and clenched a cloth between your teeth?

A lack of light before an excess of image.

With this night, your skin accumulates weft,

waxes porous like the brimy scalp of the sea.

The bodies of a million unseen objects float

through without notice,

neither emitting nor reflecting light.

I am wondering

who will bear witness to an image

that exists only in the eyes of others?

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