Clambering hands trace the cool form of your twisting limbs.
Through the blackness I can’t see you but
I reach for you. Your hair knots tight
And holds my fingers to your scalp.
I can feel the warmth of tricks and fear as they rise
From the canopy of your mind.
I can feel every breath.
Your cheeks burn. The soft skin slips under my touch
Like sand from somewhere I can’t be.
The bridge of your nose –
I feel it cross from oasis of glass to oasis of glass.
I can feel the way you smile,
Features folding beneath my fingertips.
I know the way your neck rises when I read you,
Each cranny welcoming touch as I learn my way
Around your throat to land
At the neckline that I’ve never seen.
You tense when trembling fingers read
The waves, like oceans on your colorless shape.
Every imperfection noted,
But I don’t care.
In my downward sweep I find
The secret tower of bones that curl from back to front,
Too evident too ignore.
And you shiver in the cold as you stand
Naked in front of me.
But we both know that I can’t tell
Just what it means to you.
Your satin seat is carved like oak and I can feel the veins,
Like bark where time and stress have dug deeps marks
Into your skin.
And when I run like water to the trunks of your tree,
I feel you sag in this darkness.
I feel you sag in this darkness.
Your fingers wrap mine around your toes.
Though I know every curve, every breath, every sigh,
I know every bend of your subtle spine,
I know ever dimple in the fabric of your being,
I can never know your smile, but for its feel.
I can never know your lashes but for their touch.
I can never know the fear you feel just to be
Naked.