Rusting, which happens when a thing is still
or moving, and too long exposed,
happened, of course, to us,
so that we became thinner
and brittle, and rang like bells when struck.

Still, eventually,
the surgery happened. And we suspect it helped us
stay alive. I invited everyone to the celebration
of my razed chest, and later, on the beach,
I kept my shirt on. There was less of me,
and more, but I was taken with the small, shy spiders
under beach rocks who ran for cover even from
the harmless sky.

And when, in a dream, the dead dog turned her patient belly,
she was mindless of her scar, and in patting her there
I touched, with a ringing as though from the waking world,
her softest part, where, though hollower
she was still whole.