Bimini

Luscious globules of fat float on the surface
of the golden translucent stock sitting in a glass pot
to cool on the balcony. Dense broth,
viscous and rich, like glowing honey.
My fingers in it. Slick and creamy.
A rag to sop up the spillage.
In the street below, endless sheets of winter.
Frozen puddles, frost carpeting the lawns.
Up here, palms held to the blowing heater.
Your name written on the fogged-over
windowpane.
My face is a mask of dry skin.
I reach up to adjust it and it flakes off,
exposing my raw, wet meat.
I slip into the broth to simmer. Steam
rises from my body. The flesh slips
from my bones. I throw in everything I have,
everything I own, everything within reach
and stir it around. It all turns to gold
as it drifts in the sluggish current
of that nourishing stream, that burbling pool of life.
What will rise from it, what strange creature
will haul itself out of the primordial muck,
half-evolved, awkwardly dragging itself
across the earth? The paleontologists will dig up
its fossilized remains and name it after us.