Keep You

My ribs cut your lamplight into dusty, slanted stripes
The pale sternum caging split shadows and dissected beams

My thumbs
Press your thumbs
Into my pulse
(ruby-throated flutter, my flicker-spark)

Time hovers in the space between
Our bodies and the bed

I'm not sure that I'm here
Until you trap that thin rhythm and cram it, crushed,
Into the hollow space against my heart

We sink, and in bites and bruises,
You sign your name
I lean into the starry spindrift, arching

Slumped, we settle
And, idly, I wonder
If I can keep you