Saturday Mornings

I was the type to stand naked
with my hands in my pockets and my hair in disarray
my eyes too wide and my limbs too long
and you stood with me.

I remember wintry Saturday mornings
my cold hands stretched across your torso
the skin so weathered, so many stones
etched into the wrinkles and cross-hatching
the fine lines of your fingers following my veins
the whorls and loops in the print
imprinted on my skin.

The radiator was broken so I could feel your breath
taste the cool mint in my own mouth
watch the little puffs swirl and wind in time
with the rise and fall of your chest.

You insisted on those thick, black curtains
because to interrupt your sleep was madness;
but during the night I always swept them aside
to watch the sunrise in your hair
and you always forgave me with
the littlest kiss in the crook of my elbow.

Every time we woke clumsily
I would have to relearn the contours of your scars
tracing and retracing the landmasses;
over soaring mountains and diving valleys,
deep groves and canyons
rivers and tributaries from smooth shoulder to firm waist
all along with your breath for clouds
drifting across my eyelids;
sometimes it would rain across your landscape.

And such it was a new experience for you as well
to search for meaning in my cheekbones
across my dimpled chin and dipping collarbone
against the deep crevasses
of small ears and lingering hair
Or flying with the birds on my wrist.

Come afternoon we would sink into each others’ bones
within the marrow and the cells, beneath the capillaries
where the words our mouths could not form
were engraved into each others’ blood;
until the rush of apologies became too great to bear
in the hollow space between
the cracks in your arms and the lines on my feet.

Saturday was our only day together, but we made it last.