Edict on Love

You have worn my shirt so muslin
that you keep weaving back into light
the buttons undone, I catch a part of your ribs, existing
where your hair should be I find ribbons, untangling,
like the ones schoolgirls wear through narrow bridges
Nibbling on your ear,
I pick up biscuit crumbs of your skin like
the important news of the morning
here in your thighs, the birthmarks glisten like the sulphur earrings
of the dew’s surface
I kiss your mole,
the branch towards an afterlife fractures open
I ask you then of the course of our fever
the path of this disease which helps us
decipher the kindness of this world
you stretch your fist on the terrace and
pull down an unknowing clothesline