when i started this it was a persona poem

looking only at your body

with impersonal judgement

i see a fleshy sculpture

with a sparkling aesthetic

an illustration of purple butterflies

on a young child’s canopy

draped above her bed

maybe i’m just not vain enough

but i think this pretty cave

that we call your body

is just a rocky foundation

of a metaphysical glory

gaping with depths so good

you’re not a human shell at all

you’re the one from the sea that i have grown up searching for