Bruises
These were unexpected.
Bruises – yes – I was surprised
to see the blue-yellow hurt
like a badge on the shoulders.
Bruises, bruises here from the body on the body,
but not in violence, only intimacy too intense
for the heat of its own speed.
Perhaps this is the way steam burns,
a slowly unnoticed meeting
& then the skin all ablaze.
Surely it is silent fire & hurricanes our eyes are
when we meet as runes before the wake of parting.
Empathy, chemistry—–
through the spirit & through the flesh
as if they are the stigmata of living wounded
to heal one another, as if touch itself
could all be slide-placed, microscopic
like stains breathing viral.
Volcanoes erupt from the colors
& they also are bruise-true
while I want & wait.