Impressionable flesh

mantled blue and black,

Atop slurring sand,

reluctant to cling.

A solitary crease,

dunes lean and recreate.

My position, disputed,

a slanted heartbeat.

x

But I love them for their absence.

My mum family preaches discriminately.

We peer with accepted secrecy
through bodyguard glass.

Acquainted

as intimate and cold
as exposed oysters.

But we seize ourselves

within androgynous fortresses.

I am younger,

but I dissect their births

like pastel atlases.

Their consequence

documented in my attitude.

x

We all stand in one room,

naked, windblown charcoal.

My lunar exterior,

theirs singed, even,

and out of season.

They coincide brightly with the

banal motif.

x

I map a cold war

between parking spaces.

They dictate their loyalties,

as I keep my biased scores.

The sand falls from my hair like ashes.

I betray none,

but they fume at my brashness.

But I was born here.