There was the idea of them and then they appeared, morphine-muffled. They pounded their fists against my bandages’ white doors. Shark wounds. Two sawn-off bites of filet. Toothy flashes, spitting into tubes I pumped from my pockets. A venus fly trap, ripped in half and placed over my ribs. Then I noticed the stitch around my nipples, as if I’d been missing two buttons. The surgeon sewed smaller ones there. Freckles from my chests were now on my breasts. In spring they were two forks in butter. In summer, white spaces of missing, pressed against cotton. Fall, red maple leaves fading. A snowflake clanged against my armpit. They spilled across my chest like a tea called Paris, bergamot-infused. Browning to pink. Chalk script to denote the past tense of pain. Staples painted white. A way of renewing the eyes. Two lonely sighs. One a bitten peach you held in your hand, the other turning the corners of your mouth.