Judy Kaber

OLD BODIES

Chests press together.
Legs shift, find space.

My hand follows an old path—
the groove of his back—from
shoulder to sweet curve below,
bears the day’s scent.

I think of what I will become
later in a box tucked in white-branched clay.

Each day I lift my face
to the sun, carry its heat with me—
a censor, grief, happiness.

Like the spruce tree, I bear the breeze.
Like the tree, the wind batters me.

The world will etch me in ink,
but that’s a vain thought. It knows
nothing of me. I am no more than
pebbles or a rain-flecked stream.

There are no keys here, no locks,
no doors, only

the heat we generate, the wet tongued
moments that glide through
bruised and yearning days.