The girl held is the weakness
in the heel—he wails through a hole
in a blanket, peels his fingernails—she smells tender
and tart like an orange, bitter skin of the tongue.

In his dreams he sees ripped sinews,
translucent filaments of pink and red unraveling
like pulled threads. He wonders who he was 
before this wildness, before pliers
twisting wire into ruined crooked Xs.

What is the center of being if not the pulling
force of ligaments? Hell-bent on ignoring: 
that dull twinge anchored
to the round meat of his calf, the side-long
glance of a whisper, half nothings—all things
but the arrows of her eyes, landscape
of her lips, shuddering heat of her breath.

The sacrifices tiptoe in;
inhaling citrus, never taking another
full step—the agile girl, the heel,
the memory of muscle. 

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