With everyone but you, the photographs are scrutinized.

My mother says
we do not look close enough
or even as if we like each other at all.

But with you, she changes. Our skins seem tucked in
towards each other
the wrinkles know where to slouch,
I see not through the windows of my eyes but by braille.

There is a drug in us
leaving track-marks for the other to tongue.

More potent than wine, not as thick as moonshine,
this young and living love
amends the lighting in my bedroom and bathroom to the
consistency of honey, a shade of citrine.

Strangers are stopped from seeing
our pale complexion,
faces so close that the blood between us seems to blend.