Skin

Skin


I felt the skin of my father—
his thumb a soft shawl
that enveloped our
 intertwined hands.

And when the embrace broke— 
how my tiny fingers traced 
the moss line of his skull
until it became a familiar garden.

How he would embrace mother, after-
wards in her floral gown, so tenderly, that
I would sneak in later to smell the 
trace of his skin on her every thread.

After they both passed away my grief 
prodded me to smell his (and her) gonenes 
on my body, their last skin living in 
hard, heavy knots on my face and  hands.

At  night, in the skin of sleep,
he (she) tumbles out in a 
nub of bones, his (her) memories
crawling on my skin, an open wound.