TANYA NIKIFOROVA

My Likeness

Once, when you were alive, 
We stood as strangers on a balcony
Comparing scars on our bodies.

You titled yours, 
Rail Tracks Traversing Limbs (staples to skin, circa 2012).

I titled mine, 
Streambed on Forearm (skin graft to burn victim, childhood).

We weren’t the kind of guests missed at a party.

We stayed until dark watching gas station lights 
And ambo sirens reflect on the sliding glass doors, 
But not the whites of our eyes, not the
Lightning within us.

When it was time to leave you wanted to call it,
Goodbye My Likeness (gunpowder and stardust on metal).
But I wasn’t finished with you yet.

We meet now on paper, my pen
Caressing your skin, etching grooves
In your bones, drilling through the pulp 
To find your likeness on the other side.
I will pull it out through this pinhole, 
Wrap my naked self in it, drink 
A cup of tea and leave this house,
Now infinitely capable 
Of surviving the ordinary.