You Are Incomplete Exactly

You are incomplete exactly
As I want you: The spine is finished.
I can tell your hands took many
Hours to shape and clean, and the ankle
Is rickety but has its own precision.
It's the talcum powder
That makes them bold, your bones,
Like the legs of a mild grand
Piano draped with a painting sheet.
I promise not to brush your hair
This way anymore, it's just that
From here, looking south
To your lenses, the salt crease
In the parting down to the brow
Looks like a map of Alaska
With its wobbly Aleutian isles.

Copyright © 2007 Yvette Siegert All rights reserved
from Chelsea
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission