His right hand furrowed into a fist and dove

into the mirror. I drove him to the hospital but didn’t 

 

go in. The suture braided atop his index finger,

towing flesh inwards as to make erect, as to 

 

unbend and it would have twinged with pain had he

wiped away the tears unhinged from his eyelids. Later, he asked

 

me to help him shave, so I held a razor right to his face, chin, neck, 

yesterday’s follicles undraped from revelations. His cleanness

 

crumbled onto my chest coated in shaving cream, the tub to our right whispering

wounds, sounds of heavy blood droplets on porcelain. I hadn’t stopped shaking,

 

afraid that there must still be shards in the carpet. I was barefoot with blue jeans and

tetanus vaccines must hurt like stepping on glass. I felt them in the callus of my heel

 

along with eyelashes, dander, tongue ties, wall bashes, cat hair, dry

shampoo, particles of dust. I hadn’t checked for rust in the blinds of the razor 

 

but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. In bed, we had to keep the lube from the gash,

silently cementing our lips and hips together. He saw tunnels, saw his own cells driving 

 

through thin vein tubes out into the open. So, we slept but we weren’t close, he was

hurt because I had been far away in someone else’s words. I dreamed of last April when 

 

afternoons were easy and awoke knowing stitches only fix some openings. Yellow flowers were

growing from his, looked lovely when scissor-snipped like loose threads. I gathered

 

the broken glass from the garbage, glued them into a vase while he slept, and set

the stems upright. The morning will fill it with sunlight.