Embracing Figures

Painting by Lydia Velasco
By Marne Kilates

Hair flows like darkness
Total without texture
Only the twist and curl

Of the void beside
Behind the satin sheet
Thick as blood

Scalding the bodies
Like lava or treacle
The faces vanish merge

As they cling
Or struggle against
Each other

The muscles ripple
As leaves tremble in a breeze
Or water splinters

In a waterfall
Between them the void
Closes

There is no boundary
But the hunger
To become each other

April 25, 2015; rev. September 15, 2021