Like a Seal on My Heart

The smooth surface of white skin surprises.

The world sees a splash of brilliant color and form.

When we are together, we allow these marks

Of friendship to peek through the sleeve,

The waist of our jeans, a toss of the hair

And there. There they are,

Raphael’s cherubs, fleur-de-lis, serendipity.

The sad-eyed lady’s drum, water, truth, prosperity.

The stunning beauty of them in indigo blue

Forest green and pitch blackness.

 

If we could peel them off and trade, like dresses,

I could wear yours and you could wear mine.

I could wear the angel, feast day of my birth.

You, my Chinese character for truth.

And you, beloved Dylan’s drum.

I’d put on your watermark, a reminder to me

To dive into the places I fear to tread.

Serendipity, the hallmark of our meeting,

Fleur-de-lis, three petals; purity, light, strength.

They are set on our bodies like a seal,

The way you have set me like a seal on your hearts.

 

The world sees the shape and the color

But they do not see the stick of the needle.

The piercing of the skin, needed to become.

The pain that dug deep, shared in that room,

In this house and in that bar.

On thousands of words sent through the air.

It was there in the sound of weeping,

In the force of our teeth, grit against the drill bit,

Where the ink wasmade indelible.

And now steadfast, dependable, always, always. There.

When the breath held on, let go, held on.

 

I let you go and hold on.

Brave you to the world the way I expose the marks.

Give their eyes a glimpse of the color;

They will see the beauty of you

The blue of your eyes, the center of the daisy.

And you, the brown of your hair,

The mark of your name on the nape.

But I know how the cuts have been made.

How the ink buried deep,

And set you, like a seal on my heart.