The Silk and the Bone

The Silk and the Bone

She learns my angles with her fingertips,
geography of spine and hip
while I map the pale terrain of her ribs,
the hollow where her collarbone dips.
We’re archaeologists of flesh tonight,
digging up what we bury by day,
uncovering teeth in the dark,
learning what we won’t say.

Her mouth is contradiction born,
gentle then sharp then gentle again.
I answer with my own paradox,
yielding into pressure that aches.
She bites my shoulder, leaves a bruise
I’ll show the world tomorrow.
Proof that tenderness and violence
share the same country of sorrow.

Silk wraps around bone and bone presses through silk.
We’re finding where surrender meets will.
Where the softest parts become the blade
and strength remembers how to bend.
and ruin and mend.
This is the argument bodies make
when language fails and only touch
can articulate what’s at stake.

She grabs my throat not to harm
but to feel my pulse defend.
To know I’m fully present,
tracking every breath, every end
of her wanting as it builds and breaks.
She pulls my hair. Demands more.
Demands less. Demands I stay within.

Her skin marks like fruit.
Mine shows where the flame has been.
We’re writing on each other
what can’t be spoken, only learned
through repetition and the calibration of
how hard is too hard
and how soft means we start again.

Afterward we’re courteous,
pass water, fix the pillows,
as if we weren’t just animals
whose rules collapsed so easily.
As if we’re not already counting down
to when the daylight ends
and we return to excavating
what the careful world offends.