tracing paper

i asked you to lay still so long
you became a photograph. smile the size
of a garbage can lid. teeth like triptychs.
laid a veil down. saw your features 
like questions. where to draw the first line.
how to remember the color of our feet
in the mud. that one afternoon 
i spent hours wanting to kiss you
until the sun ripened into the moon.
the dark made herons of our young girl bodies.
creek spilled from a slit in your leg.
a television turned black & white
& we watched as the static gods prayed
to each other. i could have been
your first attic. could have held
crumpled sweaters & warm dust. light
creating spider circuses in my brain.
here is your shoulder. here is the distance
between old skin & new. our knees 
grazing each others. smell of loud grass.
a curfew like a skirt hem touching
oranged horizon. wake up now. i want to be
your sapling. i want to be watered
by august. count your freckles like
stepping stones. follow them through 
the paper to where i assemble you
& you me. a finger following my hip bone.
fireflies hovering in their angelhood.