Self Portrait as Papercut

Don’t fix me. Leave me
incorruptible as hand-me-down
Delft. Upright as rain, as hard
to come by as applepolished luck.

No one combs my hair
like my mother. Neat
as top-drawer liquor.
She can make me feel nine.

In her arms I am the opposite
of plain; a passenger pigeon on its own
ride, blinded and freaked; not
of oneself; done of oneself. I am