Forty-two.

The only encouraging thing
your mother ever said to you was
You can run like a deer.
Since then,
you have not stopped running
like a deer.
You wanted light to come out
of your hands.

You say things like,
I should photograph more
of my life,
but never get around to doing it.
As far as regrets:
You will not see the leaves burst
from their branches
outside your bedroom windows.
At least once, in January,
you had fireworks.

And then the bathroom tile turns white.

You were eleven years old
when you saw your first body.
Your grandmother, who died in a cotton shirt
the colour of the sky.

You peel oranges to leave the scent
on your fingers.

Time zones introduce themselves again.
Digging into your gut
and then removing something important,
something without a name.
You forgot that they could do this.
You forgot that you could sense
the space between bodies.