Longing

I have been half-awake, dreaming of you,

of the pictures you’ve painted across your biceps 

and down your spine in greyscale and multicolor,

the way they tell the story of your yesterdays and 

your tomorrows but somehow never your nows; 

of the way cupid’s-bow lips never made sense 

until I saw yours, until I memorized their deep dip

and flare, the precise inequality of the full lower lip

over the top which came of your habit of biting it; 

of the calluses and scars which hug your fingertips,

products of repeated singeing on the barrell of 

a gun or those old cars you refuse to give up on,

(you won’t tell me which) and how those same hands

trembled as they reached towards my face, in the dead 

of a winter so chill even the wind shivered.