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I

What a lucky beast I am,

when he cleans up nice

and nicks his perfect face.

I get to lick that face,

when he lets me.

In the cut’s opening

I get a taste of him

from the inside

out, which is all I have

ever wanted,

to be cell-close

to him. Praise the razor’s

overzealous arm;

the ease

with which it finds tenderness

in this man.

I told him about the nucleotides, the genetic test, the prognosis. I told him that atrophying of basal ganglia starts years before symptoms present, and that right now—in this car, in this moment—parts of my brain were dying, parts that I didn’t know I needed, but parts that I would never, never be able to get back. I told him that there wasn’t an emotion or an impulse or a stumble that I could completely trust; I told him that one day—if I let it—everything I did and said and thought would be nothing more than the entropic implosion of a condemned building or a dying star.

In the locker room we unhooked our bras, hoping

shower steam kept us invisible,

but our souls showed, our prepubescent fuzz.

Stockings hung from shower rods like biblical snakes.

Who would learn first? we wondered, and drew breasts

in goofy loops until Sister Angelica banged

her ruler, and we printed the same confession

a hundred times, her shadow crossing

our spiral notebooks, her eyes like old

spiders. Ginnie learned and got a heart-shaped

locket, then a shotgun wedding ring.

Heather gave birth so often she forgot,

she said, what caused it. Becky’s womb was lost

in an abortionist’s garage. We said good-bye

in the Immaculate Conception parking lot.

Still, nuns click their beads in memory of us,

how we strolled, arms linked, singing,

into the world of women where all deaths begin.

He climbed over the fence surrounding the Queen’s Pond, took off his clothes, and dived in, not caring whether a police squad would approach. The chill of water invigorated him as he waded through the lilies floating on top. He wondered how long it would take, if he allowed himself to sink, for the water to fill his lungs. He thought of monsters with long tentacles that supposedly lived at the bottom, and he imagined them tearing into his flesh. Would his wife be able to recognize the body?