Last night I was a canvas,
as the moonlight stripped my arm of shale

& tinted my skin with silver tongue.
Another night staring skyward

where every creaking shift spills the world
into the ink-black sky’s toothless maw,

pressing against my skin from inside
until midnight falters & fades to dawn,

surrenders to the unconquered sun,
who, grinning wide as the horizon,

watches the twisting, turning world
tear away from night’s dreamless womb.

& I, too busy admiring
how the man in the moon slithered through

the blinds on my cold-swept window,
leaving tiger stripes tattooed on my naked body.