SEX OR SLEEP OR SILK

You are the night 

that is sometimes 

a highway, fields 

blurred by speed 

in which wild lives 

don't stop glowering. 

What is meant by

the word recovery? 

Aftermath is red dirt,  

red dirt, red dirt and you

are creases of crickets 

thicketing corners 

of this and every room 

I decide that I am  

safe. You are still  

below ground,  

an infinite autumn.  

I am the flaunting  

of this flesh that eats,  

fucks, bathes, waits— 

I'm done cataloguing    

loss. I'll sand glossy 

the corners of rib- 

cages that I empty,  

that empty me. I will 

spur my skin into sex

or sleep or silk.  

Your dresses still  

hang in a closet 

unworn and untouched.  

So what if I am  

phantom-bruise, torn  

tether, feral orphan?  

I'm telling you now, I 

am never going to die.

Tarfia Faizullah is a Bangladeshi-American poet. The chosen poem is from her most recent collection, Registers of Illuminated Villages, published in March 2018.