It’s the hole that’s not a hole, the cave
of the smallest childhood mysteries
and milky lint like the nest of a worm
who graduated to moth and fled
to eat the world. Can we not evolve
past it and its ex-purpose?
It’s been cut, pierced, banned, stuffed,
draped, flaunted. Seeing it unexpected,
on a friend, leads to liquored thoughts,
flighty desires. Could we enter it
and be new again, ignore the reality
of its unseen terminus?
And how is it a button? Vestibule, chakra,
chocolate cherry, apple cleft, shot glass,
goat’s eye. End of a balloon. Yes.
We are our mothers’ balloons, cut off
and flown like drunkard moths
to hungry openings.