After I pricked myself / in my ring finger, deliberately, with a pin / because I wanted to feel something in my own body / / that I had done on my own, I couldn’t / sleep for a week, or not / for more than an hour at a time. / I was the sun in June; I was ready to set, / all amber and solar...

It was now my younger brothers who had / philosophical objections to taking a bath. / / After I came back from the optician, / gold backs for earrings, aglets and fish scales, / / erasers’ edges, girls’ clean fingernails, / were no longer fuzzy, a probability cloud, / / but evident...