BIRTH OF THE DOPPELGÄNGER

A wolf’s entrails opened and I stepped

into them. I stepped into the jowls

of the dead, into the stench. Flies scoured

the decayed innards like priests washing temple walls.

It was ecstatic, the flipped-over car,

wolf teeth shining from gum swell above

tongue, behind cheek, after blood spill

and my car spilled until all hell spilled and you

want to know what the taste was like?

I tell you at the crash’s wake

was a new life. My new self

bled out from the old self. I left

behind a husk pricked by daggers

of wood and lungs drunk off exhaust.

Saw the one eye left in the split skull watch

my skin roll up like panty hose over the bones,

over pristine muscle blood hot and fresh.

I walked away from car and corpse and made

room for nothing but this body’s

first words. See my mouth move, like this—