YOUR PARTNER’S BODY
I place my head on your chest; my hair blows
in the breeze of your sleeping breath.
I feel your blood ripple over and around me,
through my fingers skimming the tips of your bones.
This morning I:
– held cold hands;
– ice flesh;
– a cut of arm;
– a kilo of leg;
Rotated and covered in white dressing the meat of a corpse.
Life had drained out
trickled through a slot drain
slaughtered by a disease that used his heart for shooting practice hours before
When we probed for that same beat it was no more.
Though we tried we could not keep his pulse.
I lie. Nuzzled, into the smell of your pits;
Stroke the glaze of your face;
The sweat in the crevice of your back
Feel your pulse synchronise with mine
Knowing that tonight we will both be warm.
YASMIN ROE
Also by Yasmin,