Re-cast in the second person, and slightly expanded, following an e-mailed suggestion from a reader who evidently took what I said yesterday about the Reader’s pivotal role seriously (as well she should). Thanks, Suzanne!

Beginnings

This thing called a fetish embodies
what can never be touched.
Its odd contours–all lump & twist
& rag-end–are best kept out of view.
To see it exposed, you must assume
the burden of its origins, you must
give up some part of what makes you
you. Who now would choose
such displacement? It lives
in a buried season, carboniferous.
It is the solid shadow
we abandoned in the womb.