1. Gyre

It circles and rises. Easy to spot, hard to see.

Seeping in like water, sloshing through locks and dams into peripheral vision and involuntary vocalization. Dysphoria the unnameable, euphoria the uncountable.

Refracted on platonic solids are disembodied fragments of a portrait that rang. Mom's pearls and my first tattoos: an anchor and a garbled DNR in morse code. My new voice, hidden among the protean angles, no longer probes but inhabits a register.

Seeing myself in glittering fragments which slowly move into my awareness as if from nowhere and retreat. The broken manifold becomes more continuous. Searching in the angles, points of light project widening gradients until the edges intersect. Yes, I am starting to see a face in there.

My secret vocal training in sighs and particles. His bedroom voice is mine everywhere. You can either cut the cord or choose not to use it.

I'm thinking in tongues
I remember everything.
I mouthed the words of our favorite song.
I realize his absence more.

all now in time, we walk, you are, somewhere, something, now, and always. toward