Isotope

Questioning my little love The touch that lifts my fingerprints Nails extend into a point To grab towards a silent look And fasten on the bending lines When I’ve let you in You put them back into their place Where I didn’t want them And now a nail is left inside A fragment of your smell Ululate into my eyes each time you tilt your head And make me question quivered palms that deepen there instead What is my love, my love, my love? stupor to a fit Is it really any love, if I contemplate it? Like a warming cave once cold, called to wear my skin Ceilings look down at my stomach; pity where I live Stiff with this new -- path of brick And man-made -- nonetheless I think about when I’ll grow old Then push those thoughts away Running like my grandma calls Out to climb and dance Thinking that, today’s no day For me to be dying Sympathy: I see her fears Wrinkling round with mine Once I listened to a man Talk her through the past And I don’t want to wait to say My wife passed away This many years ago…