Her Unwitnessed Anatomy

Her laughter startles the frigid air -
a flock of starlings scattering
from power lines into
the cathedral of her collarbones.

She moves through rooms
unaware of how doorframes
arch like devoted suitors,
how dust motes waltz
in the wake of her sweater's
frayed hem.

Dawn writes psalms
along her jawline with
fingertip-brushstrokes of gold,
while twilight pools liquid obsidian
in the hollow where neck meets shoulder
two languages of devotion
arguing in hushed tones.

Mirrors shrink from their task,
offering only fractured truths
a strand of hair out of place,
a smudge on her glasses.

They never show her how
sunset blushes at the honor
of gilding her silhouette,
how midnight ink bleeds
through notebooks trying
and failing to capture
the slope of her shoulders.

The world keeps its secrets
in the parentheses of her smile,
in the way her hands
reshape sunlight into something
that might fit inside a chest cavity
without breaking her ribs.

Her breath etches constellations
on windowglass - ephemeral
hieroglyphs of heat dissolving
the pane's fragile theology.

Even her shadow, poured backward
through the time's hourglass
wears the cosmos like a locket,
while every vanished instant
ignites beyond the stars
I could never claim.

-

Copyright © | Year Posted 2025



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