Occupied

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Occupied
by E. Doyle-Gillespie

And in the morning,
when you are draped across
the bed,
long,
pale,
black curls in a heap,
white sheets almost disappearing into your flesh,
I begin to read the places that I
hadn't reached the night before.
Taste the curve of your thigh --Botticelli thigh with freckles--
your heels,
the small of your back,
the space behind your knee.
I draw my forefinger's dented tip
along the scars on your leg, the place
where Gretchen Matthews slammed you with
a rock in the seventh grade and the stitches that
ended your high school basketball career.
I kiss the places
where your open-toed sling backs rub
you raw, making you hobble, twist and curse
in your treks across campus,
and the red lash marks left by the underwire of your bra.
And, maybe, I'll light my last Camel
with these matches that you pocketed at
The Top of the World last night.
I'll blow smoke across your body
like an Amazon shaman
in a healing rite, trying to cleanse
you of your last lover-- the one that taught
you Indrani and the Sporting of the Sparrow,
gave you your penchant for
screaming,
biting,
cheap, red wine and
sad, dark, roadside motels.