Effigy.

There is a picture I keep of you over the door and in my head too, where your hand is the shadow of an overhead bird falling over your eyes, your eyes tense with a pain that made your nerves fray and spark like wires, a pain I watched you in, that you called out of to say Don't touch me, touching hurts right now. There is also an empty shirt over the door knob and a book which contains the sentence

Will you believe me when I tell you there was kindness in his heart? If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into someone like that.

--but mostly, there is this picture, and the gloss over it which attracts the sun, and the sun which comes through the window at dawn and erases you daily. At least, it erases this picture, this unburned effigy of you, which is you to me, at least.


photo is gregory colbert