RITA CHIN

Torso No. 3 (Curved Spine)

          photograph by Gwen Akin and Allan Ludwig, Mütter Museum

It could be a fish, fleshless
but swerving through some sea
with bones for fins, or feathers—
a bird, white, shooting up
from its nest toward the wet
sky, the sickle moon,
the long night curving into
morning, the way my own bones
curve, the line of my spine
straight as the lid of an eye,
your eyes as I bend to show
you the slight push against one
side and you tell me about how
the vertebrae could be shingles
on a roof, but in my case
it's a crooked roof, and as
your fingers climb, I imagine
the perch of something small
there, ready to glide into blue.