Mid-Life Erasure by Edward Lee

MOST of the DAY was gone before I realised I no longer had fingerprints. I had rubbed thumb against forefinger and noticed how smooth the skin felt, how easily tip caressed tip with no resistance at all. When I looked at the tip of my thumb I saw none of those whorls which seem to contain a hint of infinity. When I looked at the tips of my other fingers I saw the same, no whorls, supposedly unique to every human being, or marks of any kind, not even the ancient scar on my little finger, so old I couldn't even remember what wound had left it there, yet every time I looked at it, without fail, I felt mouth filled with salvia; this time, not seeing the scar, my mouth remained relatively dry.
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Squab Roast — painting by Viktoriya Banul

I sip on morning’s hot cup
Contemplating
What will I do today
To pretend I am still me?
Will I bake, walk, sweat, smoke?

part it to shards,
plant one calcium seed and soon
we would have a fresh light,
bright and born in that night sky.

Estrogen ecstasy eschaton eschatological
Burning visions of the end of this world
Extirpation excision excelsior extinction deo

All over the country Brads are repeatedly falling in love with themselves, in storefronts, in chrome bumpers of parked cars, chasing after chrome bumpers of speeding cars, in ladies' compact mirrors briefly flipped open for touch-ups, in wide mirrors of trailering dualies, in shiny new quarters whose reflections could not distort Brads' superbly chiseled corners, all thirty-two hundred teeth, kaleidoscope irises that dizzy and blind, yes, Brads had it all but are giving all up with each grip of themselves in something reflective that's really not reflective at all but absorbent, a thief in the light that does not, cannot, would not give back if it could.