Opening: a fantasy

the front of my body would peel back
like the lid on a tin of sardines, 
tightly crowded with the sundries 
that, together, bear a name

that I never chose, never
took personally, don’t recognise except
when I think of my chemistry teacher
who bore the same name

or when nobody’s around me
and I listen to Destiny’s Child,
or when you say it
with feeling