Someone's ink and needles
Have written skin riddles
On his body, bare before me
Except for these sketches.

Signal and semaphore
For things he won't talk about,
Quiet and shut about
His padlocks and latches.
My fingers trace his pictures
And at each his breath catches.

He says, "why are you bare?
Bare as the day
Day you were borne from your mother?"

I say, "so you can tattoo me
With the marks of a lover."

The red trails of his fingernails,
The bumping palette of his bony hip,
The sharp tooth benearth the softest lip,
The kiss obscures the bite.
He sketched his designs on me all through the night.

He finished and was sleeping,
So i jumped the early flight.

Now 1000 miles away,
With the passing of the days,
Your colors fall from my skin
Like the moon smoothes out the waves.
So quietly they left
That i didn't see them fade.

I don't need ink and needles
To write me my excuse,
The body does tattoo itself
With old age and abuse.

With lines pulled from the inside
Drawn from pain and revery,
My body will tattoo herself
With what you mean to me.