Touch My Skin

Your frame in the doorway is golden, and my taut lips are silver. Here, in this room from which we cannot venture, I have hidden pieces of the world -- the peel of a cantaloupe, a shipmaster's compass, an ice cube from the Himalayas -- they are contained in my muscles. Only touch my skin, and I will dissipate, to become the finest of silks and my bones wrought ivory. I am soft, the hardness hidden, but you were made of gems mined a thousand years before the thought of either of us sprang up from a geyser of oil and faith. I am a bird, love. Pull my pieces apart. You will see I am hollow; I was meant for this pillaging.