there are jawless fish

sitting on her ankles. smaller ones are peeling dead skin from her toes, painted red because her hair is down & long & the fish want something other than blue: red that red won’t notice.

she takes her hands, forms a cup, tries. except her hands won’t touch: magnets implanted under new-sewn skin.

& this is permanence, persistence: when a force is reacting to a distance closing.

or maybe it is not-drunk water & not-touched thighs. a woman looking down as her arms stretch apart.