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Like Paper

I kneel, prostrated

Between your lower limbs

Forehead to the back

Of your hands

Reveling

In the Quiet Gift

Of being with you.

One day this skin

Will be like paper.

This skin

Your hands—

Parchment,

Upon which

You've written your life.

Like paper.

Life paper.


Dorsum

Scars and burns—

Administered by the weather

Of your life.

Scoring one side,

Each a story

Of change.

Other marks

Palmar,

Cultivated with intention.

Knicks

From the building,

The building

Of your life.

You have held

Both life

And death

In these hands.

Who, who

Will have the honor

Of holding them

At your death?


At that moment

Of you exhaling the

Final whisper of divinity

That you have to offer,

May the felt sense be the same

As the day

I prostrated before you—

A contentment,

Pregnant and ordinary.



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