Bring me a fist full of dried night-
shade and a nightmare where cherry pits

become clots I can spit back out on the counter
and devour again to survive the winter.

When he was born, he was blank
and he was warm. Now his hands are full

of cold glass, dripping into the bath.
When he looks in a mirror, he sees the dead

stars we used to watch together like we were new
parents. While he sleeps, I am a cartograph of red,

tracing lovesick routes into his back with blackberries
under my fingernails. A few of his friends are deer

hunters and so I hide in their red sights.
During sleepless nights I hear him become

dark rooms I no longer live in. Tell me
I was never lost. Tell me I’m the stone fall

of his steps, the proof he isn’t here. I scared him
away with his own reflection. My morning

stare still returns to his. Tell me about how all this time
means nothing after all. About how two mirrors

facing each other also face infinity. 

—Alyssa Froehling

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