You are as easy to read
as my mother’s little green book
the day
it came out of the washing machine
one solid
pile
of gunk.

We dried it out
shelved above the rayburn
but the pages
never held together again
and the cover was lost
to detergent suds and bin bags.

Is that what you expect,
when contemplating outcomes
for maybe just once
letting someone see
a little more than this shell
you’ve carved to replicate
what people think is you?