Leave Her Be

Please, don’t touch her painted paper skin, so thin over the spun sugar guts. Don’t pull her by the fraying worm silk tendons to stand on scrap metal joints. Or bid her dance on blown glass bones. Let her lie there, where she left herself.

Please, speak in whispers to the cracked siphon of her ear. And ask no questions; the bellows in her chest are winded, the pipes in her throat rusted closed. She cannot answer, wouldn’t want to. So don’t tell her to smile—and bare the fallen soldiers of her teeth—or ask her name. You won’t use it. Please, leave it with her.