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There are things carved in relief.

Like the skeletons of churches,
a sub-rosa apparatus beneath bone.
I am always drowning in marrow.

Decision tips an hourglass;
what was sand is smoke.

She got her first tattoo
in a shop on second street;
a kite that ribboned its tail
around her wrist.

Years later, a diner in Trent;
a backwash of Bakelite and teak.
She smoked clove cigarettes,
lips drawn in stichlines.

We questioned, teeth to skin,
reflections in a third eye;
images fell from an iris' edge-
impressions lost in the drift.

Borromean dropped a ring,
what was left was crossed.

Behind a heavy door,
a kite with a faded tail
identifies the wrist.

A man in a smock with sleeves
too short for his arms
traces its marbled flight;
beneath his palm he knows
every scar is a victory.