A Piece Of Skin

A piece of skin fell from my face
this morning in the shower;

not a large piece, a flake in fact,
just enough to concern me;

looking at it in the mirror
I wondered whether it was alone

and whether I’d lost other parts
of myself without noticing,

whether one day I’d lose
something whose disappearance

would make me more sinister-looking,
perhaps a whole hand — or worse, a heartfelt glance;

perhaps I’d lose more than a tiny flake
and I’d look at the reflection, the me

in the mirror, and wonder who I was
in the time before this one, this day

before me laid out like a predictable
clock face, this week and this year

a calendar of sameness. Whatever my fate,
I would have to be fair to it. I would have

to let it be and watch it unscroll
from a place beyond sorrow, beyond

joy, beyond the simple workaday
of breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleep.

Now, you would think
a piece of skin tumbling into the drain

ought not to matter. You would think,
but you’d be wrong.

Do not flatter yourself. Everything
matters, even that — you are decaying

amid your joys, your despair;
inexorably you fall to pieces

impervious to the vagaries
of emotion. You are failing,

falling apart without meaning
one damn thing by it. Keep it

to yourself until you go. Release it
once you do. Learn

to shine again
once it has gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T