Healer

When you announced a need for a biopsy

to remove a little patch of “maybe”

cancer on your back,

I grew into a granite form.

Kind of like when I come across the word osteoporosis;

automatically, I straighten as if this simple act

could somehow correct corrosion in the bones.

Deciding it must be better to dream today,

I can’t catch myself from sliding into places

where I can’t turn around and find home.

I probably would not ask you to run away

with me – to cross state lines, boundaries, borders

and divides of different kinds.

But, I am thinking it over.

Today I will dip body paintbrushes in some

secret solution to make my art permanent

only for your eyes – and it would fade

back to flesh for the eyes of an intruder.

The canvas is clean, paying special attention

to that little scar in the middle

like piranhas to a sick fish.

Smoothing it dry with multi-colored cotton balls,

I see how heavy they turn – thick, saliva-soaked,

and the opposite of cotton.

How easy it will be to apply the colors.

The outline was traced for me years ago

when I committed skin memory and, even then,

it was almost more than my ten tiny

tips of skin could handle.

As I start, I also apologize

for the cool temperature of the paint:

“Soon you won’t notice,” I promise.

Overwhelmed in colors, and me

left behind as merely a medium.

Watching the shapes of light and shadow

drift over your shoulder blades and collide

only to slide down the middle – a face appears.

It occurred to me that we are only blood,

bones, and tissues woven and spun

together to make this mass – our body –

and though I paint over it, we can’t help but become

sloppy receptacles for other’s has-beens and

want-to-be’s.

The face staring at me from your back is mine;

and if you will just be still

one minute longer,

I will perch on your thighs and take

a Polaroid picture.

But, first I must add one last mark…

Beneath the sepia “lips” that encircle

your scar, I print these words…

“With this kiss, I heal this wound.”