Eight years without meat. Which is not to say this bodyhas gone eight years without death inside of it.I have swallowed rot as rank as riverbeds, gnawed mold-pitted pride until it reached its dim-lit dwellingof near-womb. I cursed the fertileness of healthy harvests,and once, in a dream, ate an entire human baby,prompted by speculation that I was supposed to be borna twin. Believe me when I say I truly believedmy parents were hiding one half of me. Some hospital mishap,an uncoupled pairing. What other reason could there beto feel so deeply this sense of loss, a relentless pulltoward negative space? For a long timeI misinterpreted each form of absence as hunger. And yetthere were three meals a day, fresh fruit. I sat my shadow-self down for dinner, sang grace to god for his loveof slaughtered hare. I slipped gravestones to my lips,digested new timelines. In one, I plucked cockatoo featherswith my canine teeth. In another, man-toothed mentook to my skin with butter and herbs. I came outof the oven warm and watchful. My shadow disappeared.It was noon or night and this carelessness caused a scene.But soon the sun shifted and there were shadows again.I licked their dark lengths to taste once morethe sacrament of shame. Eight yearsand I can still feel a coppery coating in my mouth,the rawhide undertones of a longing to be devoured.I’m thirty-six now, my body at its heaviest. SomehowI thought this weight would bring me wisdombut different cuts of sunlight can still stretch my twinselfwishbone thin. Outside the window, my ghostis across the pasture. Soon it will walk its wayback to me. I will be full again, but not fully.