I watch the spread of evening pull
its way between two windows.
The aging sun colors your youth,
and I am powerless to do anything
but pull myself into the firmament of your eyes,
endless like ocean, Arizona.
I hold your palms like eggshells,
your blunt nails wedged into skin.
I watch you, pensive in the cremation
of eve, and pretend that my body is not escape,
a harbor to tether wave-weary vessels.
I do not expect you to bite your eyes the way I do,
to fasten lash to face, to look away,
need concentrated in your cheek. I simply plead
the presence of my fingers, laid like bodies
across your skin, is enough to draw your nails
further into me tonight.
More than this, though, I pray
to be more than the abject child
who pushed you onto her shoulder,
and, like Jesus, carried you,
through the canyon of her desire,
and out again.