Eggs, transparent and sometimes red-veined as insect wings, might be hidden
in bark crevices

or a scatter of tawny leaves.

The distance between one gestation and the next, a pleat of the dress I wear
carelessly,

as if I could sew myself another.

Practiced, my tendon-reflex where the tunnel narrows its halo
into a noose. I trust

dexterity as a kind of nourishment, as I believe my own
mother couldn't.

To own, beauty is the first lie of it, and brief
as incident

is gray
thistles turning silver in sunrise as if for my eyes alone.

I see you surround me, mother, measuring what my exoskeleton
withstands. Embellishment

is thin. When the eye inside blinks, its bone-house splinters. No eye inside sky
but an insect

drone can cause the entire horizon, seasonal
as hindsight

which follows rain. No death

will stop measurement
spiraling out, a long ribbon of salt I must choose repeatedly to cross.