Anamnesis

I burn the chorizo
with a cast iron tongue
flopping and flapping from

side to side, clapping
like a bell burning. There
is no char, and ash

is silence, and each laugh
is a shock of hot glass
cracking on ice. Hands

clap and flap in the air
frantic to shift spheres,
change colors of the sky

from red to violet, from
violet to violent,
purpling and proud. Silk

twisted and knotted
around my neck is striped
tiger-like, plum and green.

Mimic claws cutting,
but imaginary
and shivering. Touch

the wound and it isn’t
there. No scar, no scab,
no knife. Shadows that mute

and marble light like waves
under water. Shadows
that blunt and block, black.

Shadows that stab the light
like spines of a cactus.
The thin blade of dusk

that separates sand from
dark. Bright at my back,
eyes that glitter and close.