Night’s Dark Hand

With one hand, dark night mounts

the steps. Through the keyhole

you soon hear my breath. Tortured

with blindness, you feel the back

of my chair; like a fine needle,

you pierce the core of my life

and stitch it

into reverence for the body

felt by hallucinated death.

In the name of the blind, you rend apart

my whole sinful being—eyes plucked, tongue silenced.

As if slain but reborn

I grow new skin.