Your flesh stretches, reaches for the midday sun
through laughing pores and fingertips that trace the line of my arm. A song
is singing us, ancient melodies

through hand and voice and heart. A song from across dry valleys
and derelict places, singing out
towards the sea.

We don’t make it to the sea, this time – but my tongue
tastes salt on the edge of your neck, finds water
deep in your mouth. I breathe

more. Our

fingers dance each other’s palm, while a bird traces an invisible wind. I rest
against you, feathering your skin
with kisses. None of it lasts – not the way pain
or stone

last, hidden
deep in the pores, in the forgotten cells, down
where the roots cling. It

changes –

the way pain and stone change; washed over by the incoming tide, released
in the light of morning, made
whole.