Reflect

She dances:

Skin rolling like ocean waves,

Freedom coursing through her

Like lightning bolts in 

the form of stretch marks. 

The music vibrating, inhabiting her skin.

Her energy thunders and grows and molds

to fit the space around her; 

Her energy fills up the room. 

She traces

The line down the middle of her face.

A divider given for no apparent reason:

The dent in her forehead,

The line on the tip of her nose,

The cleft chin. 

Like the crease between book pages,

Her face tells a story. 

He dives

Deep into the pools resting in her eyes.

You can’t help but hold your breath

As you sink to the dark chocolate

Tint of the ocean floor. 

Brown like books after the pages have weathered.

Brown like a tarnished, but cherished photograph. 

Brown like old, bold memories.

He leaps

On the craters of the moon

Held captive in his eyes.

Gray, but not cold.

Not cold like concrete,

But like a gray sky, like clouds,

And the softness of rain.

Dancing, leaping, as the soft rain 

fills the crates of the moons in his irises. 

She drizzles

the honey dripping from her irises.

Like wildflowers and sun filtering through windows

On a lazy evening.

Like tree bark covered in sap. 

Her eyes encapsulate time; 

The glowing color of centuries preserved in amber. 

He thaws

In the summer, clear as rain. 

In the winter, his eyes frost:

dark blue flakes 

behind white snow. 

Irises the color of dewdrops,

Tears run through the metal grate and 

over the curb of his lower eyelid. 

She documents

The changing colors of her green, gray eyes.

One day like moss, the next like spring water.

Like puddles resting on cement, like four-leaf clovers,

Clouds wring out their water straight into her irises.

And when she smiles, a jungle waterfall sparkles in her eyes. 

She swirls,

Her skin melted, burned, and scars line her face.

Like a radiant snowfall or a rippling stream

Or the jagged edges of a cliffside or the coarse bark of a tree,

She is full of depth and beautifully textured. 

He melts.

His skin tone mixed, yet not haphazard.

A light coffee creamer cheek contrasting

The chocolate shadows of his nose.

One eyebrow pure and white as fallen snow,

The other full and dark like a forest on his face. 

With his finger he traces the lines of his arms:

Light, then dark, then light again.

A mosaic of color, artfully unique. 

She mellows.

Always the poet, yet never the muse.

All these songs she’s written,

Portraits painted,

Poems printed,

But who has ever written

About her?

But, then she recalls a Biblical psalm.

She remembers a God who knit her together:

Crocheted her skin, and knotted her hair,

Hand-lettering her name into the vast and open air.

December, 2023

@lyndibreypenmanship

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