By Marisca Pichette
We all believed
that they were one.
We took one claw in every
paw and swore
we’d made a whole.
Seams slanted,
cracks deep—the riven gullies
between selves.
But standing there, under
stitched-apart skin,
what was before so clearly
a horde
appeared a motley whole.
The base was flawed beneath them,
yet they stretched out over top—
plugging uneven, cut-back cracks
with blousy, wrinkled want.
They came together to our world
and played their hungry game;
filling emptiness with breath
and disregarding—as they went—
the crumbling of their mask.
So careful in their illusion
we never noticed:
Chips of figure, falling to.
The lying dust was piled up
and soon bared us teeth
slavering just what it was
that slipped beneath the sheets—
professed it was a single thing
when it was them
and there was more between
than ever touched
and seen.
