Islands

Because I am losing weight, I can feel the twin bones of my cheeks rise out of my face. The skin retracts, the bone pushes forward. When I look at myself in the mirror, it is like watching an entire continent shift. The landscape bares itself; we see, finally, its teeth.

When my mother died, I watched the landscape of her body change. Out of her body came another body, whiter, harder, made of stone. We called this death. But, it was there all along, hidden behind a map of tendon and fat. An illusion.

At night, the bones rise to the surface. We call this living. My cheekbones emerge from the surface of my face, shining.

In the ocean the submerged continents wait to be revealed.