I found a stain on my wrist in the shape of your mouth
a perfect print that won’t leave
that even through a pool and a bath and a night in your sheets
and my cold morning shower and my busy dizzy day
will echo your hands on my face
–
a brief spell in tongues, a witch and a watermoon bear
the early grass as wet as our later lips
sending up little music prayers in Morse and murmurs.
with your cool breath and your fingers pushed between mine
you are exactly as soft as I dreamed.
we have stripped and soaped and redressed us tonight
and for weeks now we have known our curves to see:
still, I lie behind you
and learn them again from the light scratch of your nail
the seamed silk of your skin and my sides
I am gathering us in my fingertips as you pull me close
when your nose nudges mine I am part nerves, part peace
as if nothing could be safer or more wracking or more unsure:
but we breathe in halting, wine-happy time,
your little breezes lick at my lashes
our waiting mouths move languid, unrushed.
then a switch, like you are split – strawberries and cream
tart on one and sugar sweet the other, these I have known –
but in the undeniably new you-ness of the pink streak between,
in the barely seconds of your very bare caring for me
you ask if it’s okay; it is – uh – it is.
you hold my cheek like a ripe peach,
running your thumb down the crease to my lips,
pushing my chin aside.
when you bite down a broad sharpness swells over me
a sigh rises heavy under my ribs
my round belly warm under a moment of your palm
and as our hands are wandering I am too
how you could bruise my flesh and yet / and yet / and yet
be so near-shyly tender with the hearts on my sleeve?
then I giggle
and you smile
I kiss you
you apologise
I kiss you
again, sweet
we stop
and go
and in the morning I know
that between your teeth and the tint
of the gloss on your mouth
you have made your mark.
