Girl within a girl

The left hand side of this girl’s head
is pregnant with her former self
or another version of herself

or someone else altogether —
a younger, creamier, more flower-like self,
a peach in comparison

to her greyscale host —
but because skin and bone
have been removed

it’s like this other self lives
in a state of suspended animation,
mid-caesarian, like she can’t

make up her mind whether
to stay in or get out.
It’s no wonder that the outer girl’s

one remaining eye remains averted,
unreadable, the eye of a shark
fixed above the achromatic skin of her cheek

that she can’t bring herself into focus
or bear to look down
at the smoke-white flowers

Girl within a girl

scattered across her chest
like seeds of the girl who lives inside her,
the girl who gets no privacy

crouched beneath the hairline
of her gunmetal mother
like a sex worker in a window

with no curtains.
She never looks up so we will never know
the colour of her eyes either.