Winter Jewelry

She was thirty-four,
.. . .. .  she’d recently chopped off her right index finger

and she came to my high school for recess and lunch.
.. . .. .  I felt her before I saw her:

she ran her hand down my spine
.. . .. .  It happened so fast I had no time to pose.

Nothing felt better to me
.. . .. .  than being touched possessively,

without having to touch someone back.
.. . .. .  She’d pull my braid, pick lint off my sweater,

smooth my eyebrows, all while explaining
.. . .. .  saffron and fisting and France.

Once, she tightened my scarf
.. . .. .  and we drove to her rented cabin, until the road stopped

and we were walking through snow
.. . .. .  falling at inaudible frequencies.

She sang something under her breath
.. . .. .  (she said it was nothing I knew),

striding ahead in unlaced boots, her jacket flapping open.
.. . .. .  She wore so many layers, I’d never been able to tell

the actual size of her body, beyond the occasional ankle or wrist
.. . .. .  breaking the surface. Around her the stars spun like tops:

tops I knew she could pause with her fingertip.
.. . .. .  When we arrived,

she lit twenty tea lights and vanished.
.. . .. .  Then animals began to emerge.

Two patchy dogs from the couch,
.. . .. .  while in one corner, something nursed on something else.

There was a mirror
.. . .. .  the size of a record jacket, and in it I saw her

walking out of the bathroom toward me,
.. . .. .  her bandage half unrolled: the wound was startling.

I opened my beer and watched
.. . .. .  as the foam ran down my hand and wrist

and she flew—it seemed—to my side,
.. . .. .  knelt, took the bottle, and said

Put your mouth on it
.. . .. .  and when I bent she laughed

as a cat dropped down near her knee,
.. . .. .  from what seemed a great height, though it couldn’t be.