The Royal and Wall

Damask

Our love was elaborate
you with your late-night typed letters and calls sharing your life
and the Spanish endearments you sometimes
refused to translate; me with my poems
about the twine of our arms, the cusp of your ear,
the rise of my skin to your voice.
This was how we first touched across miles.

MatelassÈ

Your slender lips pursed against mine
with a child's hopefulness, inexperience dipped in experience.
Your tongue slipping through: the scribe
printing the language of love
in the enamel of my teeth.

Velvet

I could sink my fingers
into our passion like carpet. We cloaked each other
in our shared scents, our limbs forming
tight loops, our fingertips creating
new synapses beneath the skin.

Faille

Your ribs, smooth and narrow
Your chest, silken and pressed
with the growing sadness of your life, seemed too frail
for me to lean against at times. I often feared
I would break you in my eagerness.

Doupioni

I began to realize
that our bodies could be so fluid: yours
slender and curved, the points of your pelvic bone
jutting enough for me to hook my thumbs upon,
tug you down. oh, but mine - with it's ruined joints
and awkward angles, stiff as an oak chair.
We could still fit together enough
to fall asleep.

Organza

Quickly, our language began to unravel
as we spoke less, becoming unfamiliar again.
We unwound like filaments once enmeshed
and gummed together. My fingers became
stiff with longing, the heaven scent of you
engraved on my brain. Some nights I need
the landscape of our mismatched limbs
to find dreams.
And sometimes they find me.

Chiffon

What had once woven between us
became transparent with abandon. When you said 'good day',
do you hide a warm, salty ocean behind those eyes? I've never been so good
at hiding - not like I'd like to claim. When I walk home,
I press my skin until it blossoms white,
attempting to reshape what was lost.