I.

You, newborn & sleeping
in the family bed—the whole of you

not yet the length of your father’s arm—
you were even then not I. 

You was the quiet simmer of sense

 -making. Yes, it seemed so clear
that beneath your feet the earth

was molten & roiling—your mother
laid flowers in your hair & you were still a

 -part from yourself, plucking daisies

 from the lonely garden at your crown.
You saw the ripple of time in the flipbook
blur of other legs over grass.

             You could do that, you
thought. You could decide where

to hunker your small body down
& watch the burning river bend.

II.

Each year fewer cells can remember
anything

             but the new country of distance.

 III.

Attention         animates the action.
The violin was a tool for observation—

in the hand of another child, one might
expect modulation. You counted
the twists of tension your teacher

wrapped into horsehair. Made music
of mimicry.

 IV.

 Persona—

             from the Latin for mask.
You are a performing body,     

the relief of the person who calls; 

remember Stanislavsky:
objectives & tactics—you want,

 so you transmogrify in the light of day.

 You distract, you placate, you contort
to fit in the grooves of your beloved’s brow.

 V.

You want         we to be smooth over
your shoulders like a coat that knows
the timbre of a season’s chill. Is we

a choice or a calling? For comfort,
not your own, you are a many-colored 

lizard. See how your scales shine in certain

light? To make we, you blush aqua
& emerald. What color is the chameleon

alone? You glow with it: color for which

 we have no name—a reinvention
of the wheel that turns & turns
& turns.