by Erin Lyndal Martin
(07/01/09)

As of right now, this breast of yours
is almost mine, resting beneath my hand
so that my fingers drape its concave.
How I love to feel the swell, a perfect
gasp of flesh, but I love too its mirrored descent,
the symmetry from nipple-down. This is how
I would paint you if I were to try. I cannot yet
fathom how to get your nipples just right;
it all seems to depend on my touch
and whether there is breakfast light
or red wine and taxicabs. There is pink,
of course, and slightly wrinkled, but how
to capture that this is about my touching you
and not about you, your age or weakness?
You are not old or weak, your vibrant breast
comes alive and brings me to life -- I place your
nipple between the webbing of my fingers
and my fingers respond, can you feel this?
Looking at you so closely, I can watch
how my touch changes you, seemingly
cell by cell, and I might spend the day
canvassing your body like this. It is not
that I want, so much, to look for evidence
of my love but to remind myself
that you are magical, even when lying
on my bed, sleepy and wearing boxer shorts.
I keep my hand on your breast.
I am always keeping my hand on your breast.
I have been keeping my hand on your breast
this whole time as my other hand
finds the slit of fabric where boy clothes
give way to girl. Your flesh there, just inside,
the bare atlas above your frenzied hair.
That milky span is flat, steady, like a heart monitor.
Pulse, pulse, the commas between
are you leaving but also you returning and so I collect you,
your cache of breaths coiled inside my ear.
Tonight these breaths are compass points.
I can always find my way.
To the south is the failed crop of bittersweet,
to the east the window facing the cannery,
North your hair rests, fallen,
west is my hand still on your breast.

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