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The sun is violent.
He splays corpses of your fingers across
My lips;
Blurry gray scars spear across
My face
And the furrows grow deeper

As the day ages.

We are drawn in graphite,
And time is smudging Us.

Your kohl’d brown eyes have
Cold, mischievous tiger-tints to them

That I have never seen before;

What defining, independent memories are they

In possession of, that they hint of such

Depth?

Your tresses still fall on tip-toes

On my chest, my neck, my face;

Curling, burning tongs that tease!

Yet if I look closely enough

I can just make out the flecks of maturing

White, where there was earlier only stubborn

Solidity.

We are drawn in graphite,
And time is smudging Us.

I am caught in the rainbow-strings that

Are woven in-between your refracting spectacles.

I used to shimmer effervescent in

The levity of the twin mirrors they shield:

Now I can drown myself

In the liquid complexity of my rendered reflection.

I can see myself, and

Then you again, and then me again;

We’re locked in the infinity

Of a shared look.

The sunlight finds relief in

Depressions that weren’t there before;

Ridges that were full;

Confident laughter where there was unsure timidity;

A measured step where there was puerile unboundedness;

Layered inflections of speech compete on your tongue; speech

That was earlier unhewn, and now bounces

On polished wheels.

Wrapped in the cocoon of our minds, we

Are changing.

I gaze in wonder at this woman

Who is the living image of the gurgling girl

I fell in love with, so many sunsets ago.

We are drawn in graphite,

And time is smudging us

And is adding new squiggles

And shifting colour and definitive

Lines; we are changing

And it shall take time to learn how

To love this new person – maybe a

Day or two.

And then we shall frolic in each other’s

Minds, as we did before.

…

I kiss your concerned lips as they ask

Why I look so thoughtful, and grasp you in a hug;

Maybe if I hold you close enough, for

Long enough,

We shall diffuse into each other

And fate shall grant Us amnesty.

…

Your house catches fire,

As the sun gloriously climaxes

And orange juice spills all over the linen of

The sky, staining,

And the world burns in frenzied animation

For a few minutes, until the night

Douses everything in cool darkness.