When we love a woman, we don't start measuring her limbs. Or rather their absence like rubbled remains of infamous war. So the shape of this truth, empty water pipes of slacks, blood ketchup on a pillowcase of wrinkled health, this stump among these stately trees, should be the grandest part of me. Its boxing glove, in rings of sweet mortality fighting for the simple stand as robbers holding up a bank, lies coveted in canvas clothes, silk negligees in upper drawers of other women's diaries. I stir the soup of self with tongue.
Seconds tick, the cool is slow.
Cognizant of burn and broth. You talk me out of shame with touch. Each raw caress, a peeled carrot, orange color coming forth. Its sting a bee that's lived its life, decaying on the window sill. At this age, our flesh is crumbled gingerbread and secrets sharp as broken glass in the small of the canyon of aching back.