Part

Reading The Bell Jar made me feel a little dark....

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I will tell
you

how saints are
made

with miracles
that hang

from the massless strings
of physics equations.

I have a ceramic self,
a vessel where the lost
live on uninterrupted,

a reliquary
for what remains with time,

the imaginary things
I've made of metal,

the true things
put on trial.

Like there were three of me,
each a heart you have
defined for me,

assigned a diagnosis of disease
for each.

with each an ear to the edge
for whispers of some hell,

of course,
there is the fourth part of self
that is made from everyone else,

walking like a fish bowl
cautious of a spill.


In a room lit by jars of lightning bugs
the four paper dolls
desperately try to wear each other

transparencies that layer
to whole.

The day evaporates to dim,
still they can’t sew the seams,

just salt a circle
safe enough to go to sleep.


But the way you tell the story
each slips away secretly,
to plug the holes with
anything that fits.