Walk After the End

A crab follows me home
and I wait for death.
Three days ago, I discovered
what it was like to be halved,
my wet insides growing a false skin
against the warm wind, like leftover anything.
I travel halved, one-clawed
and greet younger versions of myself—
they don’t wear shoes, not even slippers,
their curly hair reddish, in fact, under the sun.
I say to them, write your name at the bottom
of your heart: Property of
stone, a wordless garden, pebbles flattening
sweet-smelling grass, a bald-faced moon.
They offer to clean the bits of my blood
that have speckled the ground and stick
to the trees and their black faces.
When the wind blows, I say, no matter—
I am growing a new body,
not searching for my other half, latent, wild.
I say I discovered what it was like to have
an ocean inside of me, permanent gales,
I know why I grow out instead of down
clasping another’s hand, a hand I do not own.
They think I have given them fear, but I have
given them shade. I slink away into the sun,
grow new teeth, a new sole on my foot.
a red shell.