Self-Portrait (Memento Mori)

The boomerang shadow under my jaw
weighs heavily this morning.

I flay one valencia orange
then another,

their viscera corseted
like hearts in sinew.

The mask beneath my skin elongate,
its merciless angles tautly upholstered,

nap unshaven and coarse,
I am six billion years

and thirty-two years
and, too, next year perhaps.

My left eye plangently pink
with nascent infection,

presses its corner, wary in the way of eyes,
cartographer of light and shadow,

peels back youth and age
to unmuffle mortality's murmur.