To Grow a Mouth

I have spent three days in bed
watching shooting stars
through an open window.
The things my body is supposed to be,
it is not.
I let out a little blood into a cup
to see what it does.
            It just sits there.
I watch it rest and darken.
A star-quiet moth comes in toward the light,
its orbit smaller with each revolution
until finally, it falls.
I want my blood to become a book,
or a rope, or a chair. I want it
to grow a mouth and teeth.
I want it to crawl, amoeba-like,
out of the cup, to reveal its quiet turmoil:
the moth’s is very small.
It has given up crawling,
as does my wound, which heals.
The blood stops coming
and the flesh closes
            without my saying so.

Rebecca Dundon is a graduate of Eckerd College and is currently pursuing an MFA from Murray State University.