Me, Undone

My grandma would have let that boy in My grandma would have knelt and prayed for him   My grandma would have laid her hands over his head and left a blessing   And then he would have stood up   And put a bullet in her head  

two bodies   unclothed over-ripened   soft   easy to tear   tender to touch   dance naked   in the living room a sacred act the fire has hushed now turned to embers   it is the warm light in your eyes   that guide I do not ask more of you chide you to bend or sway to the crooks in my being I stand back   and absorb you for what you are a miracle I lean close to your left ear   and lend you my   dreams We lay down and press together   but do not enter having learned long ago   that our frames are not a means to an end   it is your mind   having grown deeper   and wider   I ready to pierce it opens up   And we   are young again  

you are a raven’s breath  flower skin  the hushed supplications of butterflies knelt in worship   at sunrise  you sit on the wooden porch  mid summer afternoon  blood orange scarf fringed across your narrow shoulders reading about things past  when   thunderclouds  roll  in  you do not rush to collect an umbrella  or motion your lover for a raincoat you sit  still opening your mouth to drink

And this is love When old man death comes knocking at the door again She says There  With you  I will go  Down deep  And  When your soul has washed away  I will light the wick And carry you  Back Home 

you are that kind of human you wake every morning and know that all you treasure so close with guarded heart will go in time the sky passes above your crown never the same again yes you are that kind of human sometimes you stop in the dead of the day to see time moving in the back room it does not judge to hold, is to suffer, it calls. i will take all this from you lay it bare leave your bones to waste you are that kind of human the kind that rinses and repeats with imprints of slave lives buried deep in your coal black eyes and you are that kind of human still watering the seeds clearing out the weeds sweeping the porch and preparing your heart for more

she smells of sage and the binding of a new book discovered in a dying bookstore. she lets me in to read when she is not afraid. she builds things for a living I asked her to build us a library to read and grow old in and a home on the pacific with a garden to gather tomatoes and collard greens with our weathered hands. she dresses in safety. a plain t-shirt. a button down sweater. flat leather boots. hair pulled back tightly in to a ponytail and tucked. no makeup. no jewelry. nondescript CK underwear. she paces around the apartment making copious lists in perfectly straight lines in a black moleskin. she specializes in risk-benefit analysis and excel spreadsheets I run my fingers along the grooves etched in her forehead I notice them whenever she lifts her head to take a clear look at me to love a woman like me, I know, is her riskiest bet yet. no mitigation. no expectation of certainty. just plain courage.

And then she brushed against me strung herself across my lap lacing her heart around mine "We are threaded," she said. You are the coming. I am the going. I've mapped your ridges with my tongue.