Haphazard on a greasy card table:
a pair of secondhand jeans for every version
of my body that took pains to exist.
Here, the proof:
I have lived on Earth, my girth
visibly expanding and contracting. I have faded in,
diffused out. I’m a nucleus discreetly decomposing the second I step away
from the mirror, emitting gamma rays out in the street,
passing strangers with reflective surfaces–faces–
forcing the radiation back into my DNA, their gazes begging
the question Are your reflective properties also the proof? I have mistaken myself
for someone who could abide being seen.
I have mistaken myself for someone who would wear
a green sequined ‘50’s prom dress. It, too, is evidence of life
on Earth–life refused, undulating on a wire hanger,
loved by the wind.
Amy Poague is an Iowa City-based poet working at a junior high. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. Her work has appeared in 8 Poems, where is the river :: a poetry experiment, The Cabinet of Heed, Juke Joint, The Mantle, SWWIM Every Day, Really System, and Ghost City Review. She can be found online at amypoague.wordpress.com and on Twitter @PoagueAmy.