trilobite lover

this is me crawling back home--
my Cambrian 
blood all coated in diamonds--
i dripped with water & prehistoric
ankles-- the sun 
skidded of the glint on
our backs--
we held onto a notion of
a memory-- we were keeping as 
a secret from all
the living creatures who
believed they would someday live
as humans-- that hope for bone &
warm knees & feet
i am taking off my skeleton yet again
for you-- this is a reminder
you were loved 300 million
years before you left foot prints
on that beach in virginia
where we mistook jelly fish for
trash bags on the shore--
we ate apples & buried the cores 
in a prayer for doomed trees to 
make roots as an act of protest--
i peel off my body as careful as 
the lid of a mason jar-- a thumb 
print in the wrinkles of a beach-- 
we're older now, you know?
you kiss my wrists & i scurry frantic 
into stillness-- you lover
was a trilobite-- eternal & 
ancient & coursing with blue blood
like the horseshoe crabs--
my eyes were wedding rings
i used to look myself
into the sun as you came into focus--
trilobites have telescopes-- 
kaleidoscope vision & in front of me
you become nothing more
than a long glace from the sun--
you contort in the refraction
of light-- you ask me why i keep
my eyes so full of crystal-- so
full of sun-- so full
of thumb prints & i can't hear you
over the loud rays of sun--
on the beach we loved like
arthropods-- came home to red flesh--
boiling & stinging as we 
made love like thumb prints on
a couch-- i lost my wedding ring
eyes in between the seat cushions or
did i bury them with the rest of
my left over skeleton?
either way i got rid of them so
there would be no more promises for
us to make--
i would crawl back again into
the quiet hum of the Cambrian
moon-- a patient mother 
waiting for creatures on
earth to finally learn how to 
sing-- she plays the crystals of
my eyes like a harp--
she asks where my boyfriend is--
the one i loved as a human--
i tell her i am here as a trilobite--
here to make memories & grow
eyes of crystal-- that i'm not
here to dig for love
in seat cushions-- 
i rub aloe on my red skin--
she pulls the waves
in & out like a sigh or a
promise or a wedding bell