The breath

Traveling up your prickly throat

Gets caught in my own and it stays

Even the morning after it stays

            it blooms even.

I pluck you, enjoying the tension

The springiness of your muscles

Deep

            deep aground your skin.

I would suck the sore from your palms

I would lay my lips on your throat

            prickles or thistles

and draw the hurt of life from

the beads of sweat it left behind.

Grow wild

in your enclosure

I won’t feel the gate shut.