Your Hands Were Architects

On cold mornings
my mind goes white

no amount of tucking in sheets
or repeating your name like ropes of licorice
can turn me pink.

I close my eyes—
recalling satin slippers

the color blue and the backseat of taxicabs.
I felt I was being pulled away

the torn-apart half-moons
of an orange, translucent and scandalous

wrapped in thin skin, white chalkiness
rubbed off on fingertips.

These days nothing is as beautiful as you,
stretching yourself into a bat, leaning
over balconies.