Russian Doll

You cannot, ever,
said the night around the sleeper 
in her empty fullness of dreams too real for remembering.

No. Never,
say mouths of faces looking in
from beyond a smoked glass.
She cannot touch them, they are too far.
She cannot be touched, she is further yet.

Here is a heart you cannot have.
Here is a fist you can.
Here is laughter with you, but foreign.
Here is laughter at you, that uses your real name.

You can die, we can kill you,
say those holding roses at the wrong door.
You can die, you can suicide,
say the voices without bodies to your body with its lock.

I am a Russian doll,
says the girl inside the woman inside the skin.
Walk out any time you like, say the mute ghosts.
You are a disgrace, 
say the holy, standing blind in filthy mirrors.
You are mine, says the workman
bloody with her wounds, reaching his hand
at the edge of a precipice.

You are known,
say the stranger in the desert 
and the woman waiting.
You are more than this husk of flesh,
says the silent angel 
on this bare dirt path a breath away from union.
________

for Sunday Muse #106.