box of jars

Hila Ratzabi
Cabeza

Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982


Taken in pieces
I people.

Throat hole is a head too
esophagus torso

intestine legs
stack an arm

shelve a self
fix an O in the bone and hold me,

silly void, the mess
head is far above

I'm a piece of work, says the smiling brain,
Is it 1982 already?

Time flies when you're getting
form, when you're spilling

into person-
hood.

Take my brain my blown open
wide-eyed dreaded reddened tear duct

mouth party brain—
I was left like this, blue drop

hangs off my ear
like the top of a hill

drops its curve, a narrow
vacancy my friend

the soul sits waiting to catch.
Little guy in my chest

keep me warm, keep
your flat hand open

for the falling pieces of sky I'm sending
out—sky body

self net, the self not
a construction, not work-in-progress

but always done forming
its happy house of a well-healed head.