Self-Portrait as Lake
       

I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into.

This night tastes of copper.
I'm lying in the meadow, fisting clover

while a distant dog unravels its yowl.

Clouds hover low and edge their way west.
My dress is stained with dirt, my tongue

barbed wire. Let me become

the sun sinking below the hills. I'm afraid
of the dark, the way it invites want

to show its face. I'm afraid of my house

when no one's home, of what I become
at nightfall: a lake where someone, maybe me,

might drown. Thighs rippling like waves,

recurring dream of my face without features
except for a mouth, drawing open

to let water in.

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from Colorado Review
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