You might be the most
exquisite corpse, not a poem
but a body weighed down
by unsaid words.
I passed my hand
along your jaw—skin cold
as I always heard
it would be. Once,
you let me shave your cheek
with a straight-blade, carefully
in short persistent strokes.
We were both afraid—
a fear that made us
tender too—the blood
gone from your face
by now. There’s a diener
who bathes the dead,
prepares them for a widow’s
touch, an embalmer
who shaves the stubble
where skin has shrunk back
to the skull.
I only want this poem
to do one (very) simple thing:
to keep a piece of you
from fading.
Listen to this poem:
