Softer Skin 6/30/12

I always remember the strangest things about you.
The way your hands look when you drive,
The way a smile looks like
Hanging from the corner of your mouth.

The linger of your self
 ( pitter patter of baby feet, shallow sounds of arguments now ended)
seeps into the cracks of your childhood home
And every floorboard tells a story of you.
Every wall and hallway still reeking with your sound,
asks after you.

I remember the way the sun painted you gold.
Early morning couplets we would make,
Arms tucked loosely around each other,
Face to face, as innocent as children.
And I do not know why
I could not keep the days
When we slept in our softer skin.

when you look me in the eye, in the intimacy of silence
I never know what to say to you.

I remember you in the hallway,
Hands hanging limp.
Accusations and questions folded in your brow.
And every memory ends this way,
The wind down and soundlessness
Of your heart and stomach on a race to the floor.

Falling out of love is a different music.
Chords being dissected and faltering haphazardly into silence,
The last ones courageously dying off in a handful of ugly notes.
So unlike the carefully constructed love poems I would leave in your mail box.

I only know how to end things sadly
So I will say this:
I love the way you reach out in the middle of the night to hold me.
I love when you are gentle,
Even by accident.