Trauma is a shapeshifter. Self-
care in retrograde. How many ways

can I write it without saying what it is?
One purpose of poetry: to cope

in couplets too shy for candor. In therapy,
we try EMDR. I watch the lights & darken,

paint Rorschach tests with my shame. I change
from one kind of darkness to another. Black

alabaster. Scar tissue twilight. Pinprick to pillbug
to grieving past forms. Each rush of blood

its own modern myth. Each stage of grief
its own metamorphosis. Still,

the hero continues on. It is night—
fibrous plaque fixed to the sky. It changes form,

& yet, the moon remains full in spite of crater
& shadow. Its eclipsed & concave body

still a body worthy of honor, however altered.