is it different to use a knife
on wood than on flesh?
doctors use knives now
to carve out faces.

they cut eyelids and noses,
they cut lips and jaws.
they cut silent words
to feed the switch.

i put it on a page,
skin should touch skin.
i write it, over and over,
this is not my face.

this is not your face,
i write it, over and over.
somewhere, i hear, we are
born young and beautiful.


//

and about the young
whether any in them(selves) carrying over
would have been been born in
to wisdom or beauty or both

153δ

περί τε τῶν νέων
εἴ τινες ἐν αὐτοῖς διαφέροντες
ἢ σοφίᾳ ἢ κάλλει ἢ ἀμφοτέροις
ἐγγεγονότες εἶεν