I spend the afternoon watching
a rooster have its white feathers plucked
from its excruciating body by a hand
I’d otherwise trust.

          This is an artist’s
statement about rights to one’s own
self-expression.

Two dolls sit holding hands and smiling
off into blank eternity.

What do we save when we can’t save it all?

A torso is constructed then deconstructed
and, finally, hidden in a sea chest
lost now to time.

        Years ago I dreamt
of a woman inside a chest
under my bed. I woke up sweating,
panicked: why did she get in the chest
so willingly? One night she answered,
Where else are you to stow
that version of yourself
you will not, cannot, live?