Skin

Baby's like a warm biscuit,

Soft, giving, and retaking it's shape

Skin; your glove forever.

Eighteen years old

Holding fast and tight

To her body

Firm like a banana's skin

Skin for a lover to caress.

Well worn, calloused hands and feet,

Bumps and lumps

Hardened scars

Skin; your protection.

Mid-thirties

Doesn't resist movement,

But flows with every suggestion,

Creeping sluggishly back to place.

Skin of another to touch.

Grandmother's skin hangs

With the effects of gravity and time

And it can be collected in gentle pinches.

It slips and slides all over the place.

Flesh that clung to the cheekbones

Landslides to cheeks and

Skin from cheeks

Become hanging jowls.

Skin; your life.

It's color only ever mattered

Inside your head. 

I'm turning around

I'm walking away

You may not see me go

I may seem to slowly fade away

Your hand may reach for mine

You won't catch my eye

I've turned and

I'm walking away 

Leave from my house

With high hopes

But already the weather's

Taken to change from fair

To less than such

But I wander on because

The city's quiet

And I need it's slow,

Easy, pace,

So I don't turn back.

My feet carry me to the

Library, warm

And I grab a coffee

Climb to the third floor

Sit gazing out through

Giant windows at a

Cold Skinner's Butte. 

I scratch out two poems

With lies for lines.

Still not totally centered

A call from home;

The this's and that's

That make up life,

An hour wandering the streets

Of downtown to the rhythm

Of my mother's voice.

I find myself on top

Of the butte, cold and alone

I hike a short trail to

A hidden alcove

And I smoke a bowl

Watch as night closes in

On the city far below

Lazy lights, streets aglow

I head back down

Have a beer, and wait.  

A night sky

Fell upon our eyes

She took my hand

Led me gently to her bed

Whispered sweet nothings

In light leaping breaths

She laid me down

Tried to find my love

Capture it in her hand

As soon as she reached

It had flown away

Like a wild bird

Climbing to the top

Of a long stairwell

The height of seven levels

Of concrete parking garage

Watch the city that

Surrounds us below

Every street lamp

Like a candle's

Lumens

Light the way

Into the night 

Born of a noble,

Peasant by choice,

[choices; string after

String of choices]

Fleeing a heritage

Fearing a legacy

Of a father's, father's

Father's, father's father's

Seedy ill-repute

Adorned in tailored suit,

Trained in the affairs of

Men with a name

Shedding a skin,

But becoming paper thin

Transparent and fragile,

Being torn again and again

Packing a bag by moonlight,

Lost in a crowd of faces,

Melt and unexist

Running through the courtyard

Past guard and iron gate

Towards farms and fields

Down a path less cluttered

Than those still inside,

Bury deep the things you've known

Reinvent with sheep's clothes,

But the spawn of wolves

Cannot help but be a wolf.

Camouflage and try to hide,

But they will always see through

To the inside.

So from peasant to leper,

It's not a far ride,

Far from the city

Wandering about,

Untrimming a beard

Unwashing a body

Soaked in flies and melancholy

Rattling mind, numb flesh

Crooking spine

Scorching sun; trust no one

Once kind heart,

Abandoned in despair.   

Her eyes are like diamonds

They cut right through me

Her eyes they captivate me

And it's all I can write

Her eyes roll in deep and dark

Like clouds of an approaching storm

Her eyes strike her energy into me

Like lightning through a dark sky

Her eyes steal my next breath

From out of my lungs

Her eyes are steep waves

Crashing on the rocks

Her eyes are my ocean

And I could swim in them all day

Her eyes can't hide

Her pain, fear, or love

Her eyes scream a symphony

Of beauty

Her eyes make me feel

All of her

Her eyes are where I find

Peace and rest