she's gripping the edge of the lab table like a bathroom sink & she's looking. she's
                                looking. all she remembers is cutting her hand on the bathroom mirror and letting her blood out into the sink blurry and alive
       now the microscope is reflecting light, pupils dilating, miasma on her breath and mitosis through the lens. a million lives through those cells. 

blood derives from the word blessed. blood meant "ward". blood meant 
                                                                                                          & save me. 
/blēsdian/ old english. to make sacred or holy with blood.

before this girl there was another girl in another bathroom lab. taking one mirror, 
                                                                                        taking three mirrors. performing
an experiment. or something like it. dancing there in her bathroom cathedral
she sees her mother. & she is so small. & she is writhing under the shards of light. if someone were to look 
at you they would see god 
                               they would see imprints of dying light on your retina and   
     all you'd be able to say is, mom I tried your makeup on in the bathroom. it was expired. 33 years.

mom. i'm sorry. i know she gave it to you. i know she gave you all of it. endless refractions of the same shape streaming through us. mother, i know you carried it through you. they left you to carry god.

and isn't that it? we are trying to find god under microscopes in biology labs and we make them our churches. praying under scalpels. resurrection. crucifixion. we named 
                               the space between them & we called it time & we called it body

while you separate poetry and life
                               she dances in her cathedral taking one mirror, taking 
                                                                                        three mirrors. moving through the air: colored gold, colored dusty and 
      alive.