has anything ever been more intimate 
than becoming stretched out 

around the ankle of a jumping leg, 
as if a body only knows how to fit 

when it sags beneath 
what we haven’t touched in so long.

I am undone by all of the ways
there is no light inside the parts of me 

still shrinking.

by how one person can predict 
their own death unintentionally.

like Pistol saying

I hope I don’t play in the NBA for 10 years 
and then die from a heart attack at 40

and then doing just that.

they make airplane parts from titanium hips 
knocked loose out of cremated bodies;

my doctor says I am at an increased risk 
for strokes while on testosterone

            just to maybe have a kid 
who’ll grow up to look like me.

how are we ever supposed to disappear 
                        gracefully 

when there’ll always be someone left 
who still recognizes the hole 

in the sky that gets left behind,