Better For the Remembering

Remembering small black moons,
the burnt patches we circled with our fingers
or fingered with our circumscriptions
whenever we spoke of night
or the impermanent surfaces of home.

My skin on yours,
an overcoat stretched to meet
each suggestion of colour,
each hint of a bruise,
but covering only the flesh,
that was your birth sign,
passed from your mother and father
who also knew the circular marks
of incomprehensible Love,
the bewitching talk,
the double-dyed surprises,
and all the dark vertiginous exhilarations
it gives rise to.

Your eyes slunk against the cold,
your body a grey heap
pressed into mine;
your kisses picking and playing
a folk tune around my neck:
darkness embroidered again
without resolution
but better for the remembering.