Exposed

names in the sand. startle the wind. her islands rise with the swells. her ships sink in the same instance. the game is obvious. Squares and stones. Pretend to choose us. Scratching the pages with our dead pen in their fist.

She counts the teeth on the zipper. As it comes undone. Animals in their human skins. Dead men waxing on how it was to live.

He climbs to the attic. To check that portrait. He notes the gaps between the stairs. He finds the cracking paint. The shadows gathering in those spaces.

Close enough she insists. I'd rather this parachute not open. I'd prefer to hit the ground as harsh as I left it. a series of pale zippers. trying to remember. what it was that had opened them.