Knowing You Poem by Mishy Bashert

I know your insides
Balmy blood, squishy organs
Thudding heart, expansive lungs
I run my fingertips lightly
Along the familiar ridges
Of your aging bones
I discern your tiniest bits
Cellular and molecular structures
The origins of you

I know your outsides
Velvet tiny hairs of your thighs
Gentle hands and powerful limbs
Tangling in sweat, tightly with mine
Tickly eyelashes, impeccable nails
Wee nipples and the angles in your face
I taste each succulent
Millimeter of your skin
Faithful defender of your insides

I'm frantic to know you
The parts that go unseen
Even by the most lauded
Of doctors and scientists
Not insides
Not outsides
The parts that leave me weepy
And full, and frightened, and fierce
Anointing us Gods indivisible
Parts battling
Impotent fear and potent desire
Of being known
And still, I know
I know