Scoundrel Time

the last time

I did it alone.
Not in bed
where I’d willed
myself dead for
so many years
I became apparition

not in the bathroom
where I fed my body
to a hungry blade &
cut down my hair
with a match.

It was not in the arms
of the man I tried
over & over to amputate

or in the songs of my
kind & clever children.

No.

The last time
I came back to life
was in the middle
of an ordinary day,
while at the grocery store,
when I caught
my reflection
in the butcher’s glass
& did not
flinch.