Tattered Labels
 

I stand at an intersection, spinning in place: I am stuck in spin cycle (not droning, not drilling
down)—

I’m attracting a crowd—

did I mention that I’m naked? but this is not another naked-dream poem: I am shedding his/her
stories—

I am bare: I am thread—

my ribbon skin, untwisting, becomes a tangled mess: bones clatter: articulated arms dance: flies
buzz my spinning head —

my fluids are centrifugal: the crowd steps back, repelled: witnesses resist contamination—

specters cross my intersection: I am north, not south, I say: I am east, not west: still, my sinews
mimic tattered labels—

I am bloodless, unsexed: ghost-mist hides all my topographies—

I am unmade: I am they, and not yet dead.