I spend so much time looking

              at scars in the mirror I sometimes forget about

my scabs—recent, tender. The other

                         morning,

when the sun made the third-floor

classroom feel like spring

            had broken like a stick cracked over

a knee, a student scratched her leg until a scab

from some impossible

mosquito

bite ruptured, a darksome blood-burn

sinking

like a spring down into her brie-

white socks where it pinked, spreading. Sometimes I think

          about those lace-

cuffed anklets my grandmother made me

wear with black Mary Janes each Easter—

the way they made me feel

             like Hermes when a breeze

      caught them and fluttered

at my heels. My body has always been pagan

          in its rituals—all blood

and the goat’s heads

of its dreams. I once had to sage

a new house in which I move

my superstitions from room to room

         like a broom, dusting

up my blessings. I’ve learned to leave

          all my doors

unlocked when I’m not home. I’ve learned

          to leave all my doors

          open to the possibility.