Against Time

Dear Young Man,

I saw your skin smooth like the fountain of youth,
pouring down your river,
your delicate body of water.

Your body is a peach,
ripening,
a firm seed planted in your centre,
ready to harvest in the soil of fertility.

I once took your age and manipulated it.
My skin was an innocent organ,
but my mind played ignorant instruments
and I danced to drums,
too drunk to
notice hands like yours, trembling
down my back side,
searching for my treasure.

I was a golden egg, cracking over a camp fire,
cooking from the inside, out,  flirting
with the fruit of the Earth,

and now, Young Man, I feel naivety drip from
your skin, mixing with my worn complexion as
I grind against your skin,
searching for your core,
going back,
back ward in time.

Skin

Tonight, I peel indifference from my face
and hang it up for tomorrow.
Ice is melting. A flood will take me soon
as my body tries to mend. A two-inch puddle
of regret is enough to drown in.
I can never go home again.

One day, I might rent a floor in a busy city.
I might spread my nerves around just enough
to find them.
I will step quickly, palpitate on
hard wood, and scrub off old footprints
that walked there before me.
Empty space for my Self to rot in.

I will peel the skin of potatoes and think
of the last time I kept someone warm,
and like my face, I will lay the skin aside,
to shrivel and dry, as I,

and home will become so long ago,
from a place where my body was fresh, but cold,
from a time when a young man whispered his flames
against my bare shoulder, and
I fell in to him and froze.