You were dead, asleep, or praying.
The old and the young held each other
in the arms of coming and going. They bore
the seams of their lives in the shadow
of a mutual solitude. I was the witness
and the hot middle ripening over –
and after that climax, my descent.
Blood moving backward in the desert –
it will remind me of your creases,
your cheetahs – all of the times
you could have been running.
All of the times
we closed our eyes
in order to be touched.
©2010 by Jessica Ann d’Arcy