Ruins

by Joyce Nancy

If you hold onto my body it will tell you different things:

I want
& please,
run your fingers along
my sharp edges—
hip, incisor, eye-socket,
know me
solid like that

or,

I’m lost
receding into the ruins
of a past life, where
(I’m sorry)
somebody else fucked this up
before you got here

or,

hold tighter even
if it hurts &
look at me, here, awake
staring into your eyes & finally
I believe you

or,

every night when you leave
the same dream
starts to play, I’m
sliding down hallways  
of an old house, searching
for an exit, &

my body knows
what I don’t,
betrays me, waits all day
to get back
to the dream, wants to see
what it can find
under all that dust.