i measure this life
by what my lips draw from it,
by how its perfume
stimulates remembrance,
by how it brushes against my throat,
tangles in my hair
and seduces me,
by how it sings to me,
the stories it tells and
the untruths i’m so desperate to believe,
by the kaleidoscope of faces
like fallen leaves
collecting at my feet

yet i am not
this insubstantial form i wear,
this rice paper lantern imagining
an ending at my skin
as a child believes this world to be
bounded by the sky

i am what lies beneath

i am the same flickering
untameable dancing that
animates us all

~

Editor: Lynn Hasselberger