Ink and Needles

Someone's ink and needles

Have written skin riddles

On his body, bare before me

Except for these sketches.

Signal and semaphore

For things he won't talk about,

Quiet and shut about

His padlocks and latches.

My fingers trace his pictures

And at each his breath catches.

He says, "why are you bare?

Bare as the day

Day you were borne from your mother?"

I say, "so you can tattoo me

With the marks of a lover."

The red trails of his fingernails,

The bumping palette of his bony hip,

The sharp tooth benearth the softest lip,

The kiss obscures the bite.

He sketched his designs on me all through the night.

He finished and was sleeping,

So i jumped the early flight.

Now 1000 miles away,

With the passing of the days,

Your colors fall from my skin

Like the moon smoothes out the waves.

So quietly they left

That i didn't see them fade.

I don't need ink and needles

To write me my excuse,

The body does tattoo itself

With old age and abuse.

With lines pulled from the inside

Drawn from pain and revery,

My body will tattoo herself

With what you mean to me.