a version of me

there is a version of me, somewhere;

I think about her, a future, almost like she exists.

there are silhouettes of me in Africa, blurred shadows across Europe,

an aching cough rattling through South America,

but always I am gone as quickly as I came.

there are versions of me in so many places,

occasionally and intermittently whole.

I remember walking on my own feet,

tilting my head up to the sun, the snow, the grey skies,

trying to trace the way my bones feel, the way I take up space.

but this is boring: I am here, too,

and it is temporary, I remind myself.

I cross my legs in the grey-green Atlantic, splashing at the fish,

squinting blindly at the waves in the distance, at other continents, all a blur.

maybe I will be in Ukraine again soon,

or Latvia, Macedonia, anywhere but here. maybe,

I will look at myself and my life,

and I will see a place for me.

not this pock-marked skeleton, sick and scared,

but a framework: a version of me.

the waves are the same, intercontinental:

about to break over my head.