paint me.
paint my hands,
paint my fingers,
paint my fingertips.

paint my arms,
paint my chest,
paint my neck.

paint my face,
paint my eyes,
paint my mouth,
paint my lips,
paint my teeth,
paint my tongue.

hey dreamer, sound sleeper
and your bed stealing sprawl,
all limbs distant, like you dream of falling.
sound sleeper, nothing wakes you.

not the sheet being dragged from you,
not the square of weak street light
that aids my viewing.

not my hands, tracing here, holding there.
you don’t wake at my warm breath
as i lean to catch our scent still clinging.

you do stir at my curious and unrepentant tongue
crossing from acceptable to intimate,
from open expanses of soft skin to hidden intricacies.

you finally wake, sliding from your dreams
and their ghostly sensations
into the warm bathing of my mouth.

would i be considered crazy
to run you ragged on a hot day
just so i could sponge the sweat from you
and wring that sponge into a dish
and set that dish in the sun
to evaporate, to leave behind a thin film
of your salt?

how long would it take? all summer?
to collect a spoonful, or just a pinch,
enough to sprinkle, flavour.
would it be enough
to return my appetite,
re-engage my interest in food
that i lost when i met you
and became convinced
that your flesh was all
the sustenance i needed.

a bath with you in light
i wash you clean of shadow
with my softest cloth

small, it takes time,
the entire afternoon lost
to my ministrations

you follow my efforts,
looking from the inside.
you never knew your skin
held so many eyes.

like a fisherman over his net
i arrange you as i work.
your limbs i fold, your body i roll,
your hair i brush aside.

finished, you are posed for the poster
selling the naked intimacy warm air
light exposure bare flesh thighs
no longer neighbours
skin no longer the border
self control no longer

Swallowed fossils lie sleeping
in our recesses and our corners,
old as curling ferns,

From when the sky
was the second sea
the Cambrians swam.

As you move about
our dressing room
they wake and call,

Their unformed music floods me
with the fecund heat
they remember.

The old song
makes me uncurl
on our bed like the fern.