It is time I discuss my sickness.
And here my fingers want to write
skinless. And sometimes it is like this—
a body unspooled in the red morning
light. The light that claims the basil
on the sill, my fingernails, my lungs
which strain with their own scarred music.
I begin to say, yes, I’m ill, as though
I were admitting an addiction, a secret
kept in a closet between shoes
and old handbags. I hold onto
the doorknob, try my feet
in the hallway. Look how
my shadows follow me. Look
how the light comes through my hair.