before we make
love i will take a magic
marker to your skin and
draw the streets
(intersections of veins on the insides
of your wrists) I will
connect the freckle constellations
read your
mountainsvalleys with my fingers like braille I will
drink from the freshwater streams of
your cinema paradiso tears
bathe
in the salt sea of your skin—

a baptism.
before you break me
like bread.