Our Early

You said,
They’ll never love me for my face, and I said, 

I will love you for your face.

And you lay your head in the bend 

of my arm and I told you 

the old reasons. You retched

the kind of moans one heaves 

in pain or tears. But you grew still.

I thought you slept - 

then,
thank you,

soft as dawn.

That was how we whispered 

when your skin was raw 

and blistered and your sleep so fragile 

it was was broken by 

a shaft of light.