Skinned Poem by Joanne Togati

Those august rays
From the round yellow dawn piercing in through the dusted glass of his window
The shore just feet away, lapping the sand
And the wind billowing through his brown curtains brushing against my cheeks
bringing the taste of salted air to my tongue.

I raised my head from his, and his scent, white leopards in heat,
Remained with me the gift of all great lovers
I would see this moment again even if only in a dream,
The bleeting of a heart once so young
Pumping innocence through a boy’s veins
He was not yet a man
But a lamb in a man’s body
The time was just before his 28th
That Saturn return
Soon changing his shape and everything

But the wind and the sand blew hard that day
His hand resting on my laurel heart
Sunken in a temporary glorious vanity
As if under the honey skin of my flesh
It belonged there
His chest embracing mine
those tides that rose and departed in his eyes and their
Powerful pouring resting on me, like blankets of heavy sky
That day he was the ocean, and I was a shell

His gaze deposited the largest wave above me
as I was taken under
Holding on to his legs, he stood above me, above my shoulders
Ready to dive off into the next wave
And he dove again and again, like a dolphin through the sea
I went with him into the next and the next
Until the tide turned
And the sky became a troupe of white falling clouds

The clouds fell one by one
over him and over me
we were whitewashed, and turned on our heads to see each other
formless, speechless, motionless, opinion-less, relegated to silent solemn things

In moments only to be remembered
To be remembered like the sweetest last taste of icing
On a favorite childhood cake
Is how I awoke.
I fainted into the cold December light
I dreamed of that love again.
I so wanted to live that love again in spite of its deception.