In the church
of skin
from which there is
no cure
for light or hip-fire
night-fulls,
our bodies grow
limbs – ghost-like,
they rise and sink:
the weight
of a spoon
disappearing.

You’re up stirring
coffee:
lukewarm, untasted,
bone-heavy
white now, and perhaps
we’ve had
another fight,
another nothing
not to talk about.
You’re too
tired again, too empty
to move close
in daylight (how to
remember
the feel of flesh?)
and I trace
the thought
of leaving

in a mesh pattern
of sun echoes
dancing
across your face:
glints fallen
from my wedding band —

sun bunnies,
I called them
as a child, unlearned then
in the art

of skin-prayer.
You haven’t
shaved in weeks,
but still the light
turns both your cheeks
to stained-glass.