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What Lasts
by Amber Leffler

Thin skin of my wrists. Blood,
breached black against white tile
and tapering, tragic, into dreams.
My hair, spinning more white
each season of fairy tales
I feed on. Your hands
in my hair—no, that I was
there, scratching out
hymns for old dead songs.

My embryo that burst out rowdy
in a crowded world. I wanted
just one thing, to last. Immemorial
as cave paintings scrawled
on the blueprint of my marrow.

These jottings, too, will slide
to dust. Your touch
will someday reckon nights
I haunt an empty book
and leftovers of merlot
dredged from local photos
where we drank in bars. To take
what fits in pockets

can’t frame your face unless
you touch me like my
date of birth. What lasts
snaps open like a suitcases packed
with poems, or my jawbone,
popped out and in by one
mean fist that bruised three years
or longer. That also fades. What shines
must leave. This lasts, and only this.





Amber also writes under the pseudonym Starlite Motel.




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