the favorite admitted her addiction to being struck
like the clapper of a bell.
Although she said I couldn’t do this in real life.
It was a human interest story and you
up late studying for clues.
Virtual hooping had made her
bold about her amputations.
She unfastened the prosthetics before sex now.
The Swedish legs, dancehall butt, baby feet.
Beestung lips, airbrushed breasts—
Somewhere there was a real girl.
Could you make out the seam around her
button nose? Like the clouds must have done
above the Romantics, watched sleepmarks float
across your skin. Memories of other touches.
Centuries of them.