I have made a new skin for you twenty-six times
the cells, a telescope or our children
having lunch on my favorite parts of you –

sometimes their lips’ pressure made you cross
chattering like a bug on summer screen doors,
and you would turn them blue. Aching,

they would plead for a larger bruise,
discolorations that would give plenty of room
for the fresh cells I am growing, giving life.

These make you smile for their thirty-five days
spread across my hips and the waves
rocking the sun, radiance to burn your side,

the teeter-totter into your flesh –
I remember that you love me again and
have, too, given me new skin twenty-six times

but yours is built much like a fire, heat ambling
to my chest left and farther to the right,
every cell becoming one skin, waves high tide.