Missing Pieces Poem by Chris Tusa

The picture on the cover of the puzzle box
shows a woman with orange hair and fish-white skin
standing in the mouth of a seashell.

You take a drag of your cigarette, smoke crawling
out the corner of your mouth as you press
a round red cheek into the hole in the woman's face.

As you look for another puzzle piece,
I can’t help but imagine that I am the woman in the puzzle,
that it’s me standing in the mouth of the seashell,

under a single sliver of black sky, one green eye
stuck in the side of my face, my pink nose floating
above the empty white space where my mouth should be.

While sunlight silvers the curtains,
I watch you fit each piece, fill each empty space,
and I feel whole.