Shame

I touched her electric skin in the tangerine morning,

Fingers of rose-haze coming quietly over the horizon—

I loved her then, before I knew

She was a ghost, needle marks running up

Her arms, black thread sewn over her torturous tendons. 

We staggered around the middlesex fairgrounds

And its flattened grasses, riding the tilt-a-whirl

When we could barely stand—

And I touched her skin in contempt of something,

Of who we were and who I was,

Of the child that was lost,

Taking with it my familial beliefs,   

Of our kitchen covered in shards

From my mother’s throwing plates against the wall,

Of my father’s lost job, his lost law. 

But she took me from all the bad he stood for

And all the falsity he poured forth,

When she kissed my skin

And let me kiss hers, tasting of salt, gardenias,

And victorious nectarines, soft with summer.