Circles

Every day I trace the same rough circles

Can feel the circumference

Beneath lid and lashes.

I thought you were better?

The ceremonial asking

And the question catches

Through my hair

 like fingers.

I trace the same rough circles

In soap over dishes

See my  bulbous reflection.

The connections are distant.

In the corner a witness

Checks in my face

For their own confirmation.

We are family. We are here.

I trace the same rough circles

In the old assembly

The fear, smudged and angry

Is pushed under plastic.

This is the sequence of layers

Which the camera calls ‘happy’.

I trace the same rough circles

The skulls ceremonial wrapping

Keeps my fingers firm there

Cold digits on forehead.

The noise of coarse sandpaper

Tears through my ear

I trace the same rough circles

Against my breast

Feeling, fighting

Against the reality.

A parody of woman

I feel nothing, disparity

I trace the same rough circles

Again and again.

Sometimes there a snagging

As old skin wears way

I work through the spoils of my childhood

I trace the same rough circles

In the hard cold soil

Of the field I walk around

At  the edge of dark

As the afternoon eases

Her authoritative arm.

I trace the same rough circles

Attempting a calm

My own touch over bloodless cells

Trace the same rough circles

With my head to the pillow

Wish it was the speech

Of somebody else.