Amy Silbergeld

Stain

I can come to miles easy
as away
is easy even occasionally
                                                                                                    to wake halfway
                                                                                                    through the night to
                                                                                                    remember your skin

(if I hadn’t lined up with the other prep school girls in the old dance room for
crested blazers and how-many-inches-is-your-waist-round skirts)

if I had, and I have come into the same two-way mirror

           come dressing rooms
           come churches
           come hospitals

           I have found myself in
the corners of my eyes as
black and dry some mornings

I have been silt, come
miles here walking

                                            accidentally into backroom charcoal burn to find you

I have come nervously made up with brown and torn stockings on
city lines to find you, me, a mirror, every time

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