I have carried the weight of you
in baskets slung over shoulders,
woven of shirts slipped deftly off,
and like gauntlets thrown down,
we wield hipbones, blunt and bruising,
fingers on the hilts of other weapons.

At each meeting we choose new weapons,
sometimes my kindness bearing on you
like small stones, each barely bruising,
instead cutting crescents into shoulders
like a star chart, and at sundown
I mark constellations others have left off.

Tracing red blooms of scars, I drift off,
guarding my arms like the weapons
they are, ready to break things down,
walls built on the seismic ground you
cultivate, each heavy stone shouldered
into place, stubbornly ignoring the bruising

of egos, and ones who've done the bruising.
For every body that slips silently, or takes off
noisily: failure stays on your shoulders
like a beast, soft words my only weapon
to cosset and coax it away, to keep you
light. Stronger than you have come down

beneath my hands, thorny angles worn down
to relentless curves - rounded, but still bruising
under fingers fastened to the soft skin you
knead into readiness, never cooling off.
The energy in summerslick bodies is a weapon
to aid in the bearing of pale shoulders

to the ceiling, to the August sky, shoulders
matched, necks extended, no slow down
until we've exhausted every weapon
we've gathered against each other, bruising
not even the heart this time, sealing it off
against the settling dust, an aftermath of you.

Lips against your shoulders, I'm still bruising,
pulling you down and pushing you off,
and I have no more weapons against you.

08/08/2007

Author's Note: an outofdate ode to df.

Posted on 08/08/2007
Copyright © 2024 Christina Gleason