Me-ror 
Poem by Monica Mody

Your broken skin flutters under contact. “What we want to say is,

Me-ror at what we remember, tearing through the white skin of paper, parchment, petal.

You see yourself.

We want that you see yourself, we want to rupture surface, form, seam
in our ash way— integrity of your materiality, illusion of intactness— we burst forth.

We want you to see us.

Your b&w attic memories where we yellow & stain— where you have preserved us, dated us, annotated us with love & that instinct for self-preservation— (grateful as we are we crawl out on bony, plump knees & from a heap in the floor see
your inked world—

Each of us wants you to see yourself there in the dark heart of things— see us—
know of your blood, bone, ligament, tracks, continuity—

You are restless.
 Your broken skin flutters under contact.

Your eyes are beautiful, open or closed. Eyes in lost, mysterious medium. Dark shadow growing from our eyes, we see you.

We scrabble our way out through brow, visage, glade
restless as beavers, each of us trying to speak to you. Your mirror is tilted to hear. Your ears ring, our cries through your ear—

We chose your surface to tear up, you know yourself to be porous.

Each of us trying to speak to you— you mirror us.

We are map, contour, cloth, fire. We are marks, vibrations, outtakes, love. Ancestors need your warmth, human. Me-ror. We want you to know that we are here.”