Affection.


She moves herself
between the stiff, soft bristles
like walking through rows
of corn stalks
in the dead of summer.

The canvas, with that ghostly, blank stare,
hikes its skirt around child bearing hips,
spreading its half-shaven legs,
spreading its half-parted lips,
thirsty for those gentle strokes
that give life to its bare soul.

Her eyes spin
to the insides of her skull,
the same way jackpots 
are found 
from the rotating wheel
of a slot machine.
She hunts 
through the heap
of suppressed screams 
of her father
and concealed dreams
of her brother,
scrapes down the lavender trail 
of her veins, 
through the linings of her flesh,
into a snake sea of intestines
and finds a bloodstained diamond
in the center of her soul,
shining like the silver cross
that hugs her neck.

The soft exchange 
of seductive words
before climax.

Shapes breed,
colors dispense;
they spill like blood 
from the deep slits
of her mother’s wrist
and
figures dance
like the glass puppets 
that hang 
from a chandler’s hand.

She left traces 
of her childhood 
splattered across 
her lover,
in shades only 
Love can produce.