I helped her to bed—old woman.
She’s a timekeeper and her blood
and purple-blue veins whisper
love is the old woman’s skin—
sheer, shiny, wrinkled, adored.
I lean in closer to inhale
the sweetness of old life—
gravity’s enemy given in,
accepting the weight of heat.
I take some for myself, old woman.
I drank up the stories of your life
and found that love can be firm,
a wall, no longer a window
to blood—a young woman’s skin.