80.

there is a shade of being
underneath your body that turns
my skin the color of peach,
and pearls and other soft things

I am blanketed by the lengths
of you that stretch across my shadow
to make me cleaner and more
protected, and more, just much more --

and these old braided melodies preserve
your image in my skull, so you can stay
with me from however many miles
away you are, and I can burrow

beneath your surface into the caverns
I've found within you, and there are geodes
and crystallized stalactites clinging to
the roof of your mouth (and

they taste like rock candy) so
I can feel the heat of what is just under
you, the water falling from your
skin onto my skin

I am not partial to the distance
between us, but I am reminded constantly
of you in the finger marks you left all down
my arms (and only I can see them)