i have integrity.

i am intact, like frozen

ice that arrests a glass all winter.

i want to make a study

of your hands again,

of the way they felt

studying mine

and all of me.

i was positioned beneath

your thumbnail—should have

told me how i would be

flicked aside

when the ice began to melt.

“cling to your integrity,”

they cried. “save yourself”—

propaganda papers that stuffed

my bloodstream. my veins

are blue with their pen

ink. the wilderness of windows

grows a smoggy grey,

with closed mouths growing teeth

that push through scattered glass.

they said, “hold yourself

high, away from groping arms.”

and those arms stood for something else.

i hold the image of beckoning martyrs

that dream of white wings

and drool like babies

and burn all the same.

no one considered power

in one nudging

silent thumb.