re: would it be terrible of me

I never thought less of tattoos than
When we were exchanging notes on our
Missing spines.
Two times, three, four-- and now I
Scream, I've been to cities renowned for
Love. Love, looking isn't the same
As having.
Home, love, candles when not needed,
Wine, and symbols of equal
opposites.
I longed for letters written of
letters written on
what?
My chilly muscles and the abstinence of
paper when it needs that least--
When I need that least.
I whispered to comets headed
your way and became
hopelessly addicted to
the sound of the wind off
the ocean.
(We never were good at letting velvet skies be)


I think about tattoos more than I think
of your dimples of Venus
as they disappeared when you bent
and took the weakness in my knees with you.
I can see now how your hair
inks the wind on the shoreline,
how you hear nothing but its descent
and needless rise--
I know now
how hard you listened for the tear
of the moon's tendons
as it pulled
and pulled
the tide till we washed
ashore.
(I could never tell the sky apart from the sea.)


Dimples, sweet stories painted on--
around-- dimples.
Did you know of my alabaster tattoos
before you asked why I draw the wind?
While the bow and violin belong
to me, the hair the bow is
made of is not mine own.
I live on coasts where buildings
are made of Venus dreams and
once weak knees now knowing that
sea and sky are the same.
One made from the other.
I have heard the tide, but only
seen, never heard, the celestial
in you.
(... if I asked for another sky?)


if you made the wind, what made you stick
the scent of you so deep in my siren-ears
I can smell you if I breathe too deep?
at least dimples are just dents
of a happiness I try to slip
into ago; how would you carry my sea-bed
in your arms with no arrow to stretch from me?
I am fetally yours, here
anxious and aching for another sky
too afraid for asking

let me say that I miss your Neptune eyes

(I would gladly give you the sun.)