Liquored fingers entwined in hers
The nectar on her palms
Dripped to her wrists
Before, she did not know the scent of sunshine
But in the glint of copper and gold on their wrists
She could see forever
And beauty
and youth

Then the night came in a blaze of colors
Sinking into her skin and drying the sweetness on her hands so that it cracked in a glaze
She was afraid and alone
Cloaked in darkness blind
Nothing could save her it seemed
So she looked for shelter inside herself
Hunched her shoulders into her hurt
Waited for the sun to rise

And then the light came
Not in the form of peaches and summer
But in unadulterated silver
Clean and cut out of shadows
Illuminating her eyes in a thin layer of moon and breath
And the stars spread before her
Plated crumbs around a celestial plate

She found sustenance in it, spread her arms out so that she could catch
every bit of the light
and the glaze on her wrists peeled and fell off,
and she stayed that way
with her eyes wide open
until the sun came to claim her once again
in a cherry red glimmer at the edge of the earth.