1001 Nights

I anoint myself with oil, starred
sandalwood across my wrists,
my brow, & the soft concave
where your hand rests; the spark
of my own luminescent gaze,
lowered, to take the heat out
of my skin. The hot ocean
pulling shells from beneath my toes,
the scrub of salt (all those stories)
into shallow paper cuts I made
folding letters, coaxed syllables
drunk on the space between breaths,
(I never sent any) but
I kissed each seal, like fate;
the holy Sister with the scissors,
unraveling the ribbons, traveling
the tropic of Cancer
the wider path, (for a mile
or two) until like a gypsy,
pulled by fires bright and blue;
I can see across the valley.
I knock at your door. If
you ask only once, I will answer
a thousand times.