[James Midgley]

Hi Matt,

I find the voice in this and your poems recently in general to be charming and engaging -- which is no small thing (I'm a little envious).

The woodworm seems pretty friendly.

I feel like this one is still a little larval itself in places.

I'm not sure you need both 'flaking' and 'peeling'. 'Betrays all precious metal claims' sounds a bit circumlocutory and there is the confusion of 'betrays' being something close to an antonym.

The holes/holy pun is a tough one to get away with -- but I feel like you might when the rest of the poem comes together. I like the plain, direct question line.

I wonder if you need 'ersatz' if its artificiality has been established well enough by the prior lines. I want to like 'Something there is that is' but it trips me every time.

The last line isn't working for me yet -- it feels like a handwave. Even reversing the lines of the final couplet -- which I think would be better -- doesn't smooth it out enough for me.

I took the poem to be a kind of illustration of the concatenation and delineation of selves and ideas of self -- where do they reside in the body and consciousness, what is it we identify with, and how does that relate to mortality and decay (how do we privilege transformations)?

Thanks for the read.