with a stretch of synthetic skin from elbow to navel,
I am making a cocoon in which I can become anew
to hide myself, these grimy pores are filled with
things you left behind.
I cannot push these streets wider, the naked
look of you alone is a terrible waste of blinking

on nerves we transmit syllables, blips of translations--
books lost page for page in the trample of new limbs
to tangle in, our heavy breaths are whispers that fling
electric and blue.

To plead would be the pity of a few seconds, the flaw
of little more than mortal thought. Tracts follow the
pale of you against this flesh, to press and bruise
a ripened skin
Strings connect the tread on the map,
press outward all of this stilted mobility.

were I to pluck you from this scramble of sheets, to
tremor at the thump of your chest, to shiver and heave--
what sighs I could push from the cadence of my body,
all compressed.

10/17/2006

Author's Note: When I discovered this poem, I realized I had written it 5 years ago today, which is cool to think about. I also realized I like it more than almost anything else I found in these lost poem archives.

Posted on 10/17/2011
Copyright © 2024 Lacey Smith