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.