I saw one copperhead coiled near the compost heap – eggshells, coffee grounds, moist citrus, oaken scent of a 15-year-old single malt – Some people believe their own appendages don’t belong to them. They immerse an arm in ice to damage it so severely that surgeons need to cut it off. They place a leg across a train track. Then wait. Some physicians agree to remove an offending limb, assert that body integrity dysphoria is an illness, severing the only cure. In a documentary, I watched a 30-year-old man in a wheelchair point to the line he had drawn above the end of his stump, his finger stabbing. They should not have amputated the leg there. They made a mistake, he stammers. They should have sawed here. 1/8” higher. Everything feels wrong. I saw a black racer snake slide under latticework into the cellar – Scars represent a body’s chaos, says the massage therapist I never went to again. We need to address your wounds. They need to be given order. Tell me about your pain. The room dark. My face trapped. At 21, I had to sign permission to allow the surgeon to amputate my thumb if necessary during surgery. One numbing shot in my armpit, then they hid my arm behind a screen. I heard some tapping, a silver hammer on a musical nail, then felt something give way, release, crack apart. One day I found a sloughed translucent cylinder deep in the root cellar. Perhaps it belonged to the copperhead but I don’t know – Perhaps it pulled its body through sharp shards – broken terra-cotta pots – emerged amber, brown, glorious again. Tell me where the copperhead was. Here, not there – Show me where it is now –