she said she was born on the edges
of paintings someone had always forgotten to finish
she said she lived on the banks of rivers that never reach the sea
her voice trailed off at every juncture
giving the afternoon a song
that only the heart could hear
“and do you feel this as I do?”
gazing softly into nowhere

She paused
and let a sigh that vaulted a chorus to her presence
it heralded above all the things we could never see
it wrapped it’s arms around the world
and gave birth
to what she had always yearned to say
but language had always failed

from the fragrance of the river
she shed her outer most layer of mistrust
“we are”, she said “incapable of deserting ourselves here"
“it is this naked hollow that
bestows the paths
from which we will approach"

“by looking
into you I have already been laid bare,
let us reach under this skin,
touch the untouchable
and finish the edges of a painting
long forgotten
and stained with the graffiti
of your past”