I will not read

your autobiography.

feed your thousand pages

- dry, brittle, crisping -

to the bonfire

of indifference.

take instead my touch

to the root of your hair,

to the follicle

underskin.

trace the quiv'ring line

to the deepest heart

of you.

to the still, still heart

of you.

tug the shaman's mask

away...

another mask revealed.

a wasting, a cleansing,

an unsigned diary,

a fecund trial

met with frost.

4/17/21