i can see them from the kitchen table, settled in the left grocery cabinet. they are opal; your eyes were opal; they glistened like spring rain and the bluest lake from your hometown⁠—michigan. it was the summer we visited your parents, back when we were both still paper-light; days for melting into crystal waters and each other's hands. you bought the eyes for me at a shitty souvenir shop, because a pretty girl said they were cool and i got jealous; you laughed then and they are still pickling on my shelf even now, bobbling in formaldehyde preserve, next to the sugar jar. they remind me of garlic bulbs, cloying in vinegar; i remember how you always hated sheathing the cloves of their skin; you preferred them smooth and stripped and soft already. sometimes, when i miss you, i like to hold them in my palms, as if their softness, slicked onto my fingers, could cure me of the hollow you left. i count them too: one opal iris, two opal irises, three opal irises⁠—did i tell you? i don’t worship cigarettes anymore, i've become a christian⁠ girl now—four opal irises, five opal irises, six opal irises, infinite opal irises, settled in my hands like prayers; emptied souls staring at each other, counting.