You wake up and the woman is gone. You wake up
and the woman is on her hands and knees, keening

Do you know where my eyes are? I can’t find them. You look
and look. The expanse above her nose naked,

fig-purple. You wake up and take your hands off
one by one. Every time you have hurt someone

you imagined hurting yourself, first. You called it praying.
You wake up screaming for your mother. She unhinges

your bedroom door, lifts it with a single hand, takes it, leaves. You wake up
in the canned food aisle of a Safeway and all the cashiers get on their hands

and knees, say look at me, I’m in love with you, I want to look at you
forever. Their faces ballooning blacker and blacker. You wake up

and the woman is in your bed with no sheets. She does not speak.
You cannot touch her. You cannot wake up. Your insides sleeping

like pulp. This, the quietest violence. You open your mouth
as wide as it will go. You open it like you will never die.