Self-Portrait as Masturbator
By Yuxi Lin
Come—swim in me, tread
upon shores of cenotes
unburied. In the
water is a sheep
led by the horns, a hand there,
white-knuckled, grasping,
but it’s you blinking
through her slow lashes. You had
convinced yourself (or
were convinced) that Out
There is where Fear lives, walking
in a body not
your own & if you
kept your head down you might not
meet its hollow mouth
skimming over your
smooth surfaces. It’s smaller
than you’d imagined—
the red curve where God’s
knife sliced through trying to draw
the perfect circle.
You are the head that
emerges on the other
side of love, the eye
of a thousand lids
opening, searching, I’ve
arrived, I’ve arrived—
