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Projective Tests

I'll remember your nose for you and keep it safe.
Like when you snatched my childhood's nose,
disguising a button between your fingers as the
pad of your thumb. Today your nose is in full lotus.
Yesterday your nose was a snowball cauliflower.
Your breath leaks from compressed lips, cheeks
as round as river stones. Yesterday they were
Yukon Gold potatoes, and those fold-mountain
ears—fruiting oyster mushrooms. You're asleep
for my visit today, so I can't take in your irises.
Tomorrow perhaps they'll still be Van Gogh blues.
There's an optical illusion playing hide-and-go-
seek in your hair: an old woman or a young
girl. You would have liked it. I'll tell you
when I visit again tomorrow.

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Mariel Herbert's poems have appeared in Failed Haiku, Haiku Dialogue, and Liminality, among others. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, online at marielherbert.wordpress.com/.