Tomorrow I will learn that my body is romantic.

Romantic as in rounded, buxom; romantic as in

assumed to billow. Like Rose, lounging gingerly

in her stateroom, tousled curls lolling on open

shoulders. Like Rose, holding her lover’s gaze

much like a young girl holds a nectarine newly

ripened: tenderly; a question of hunger.
Tomorrow, when I carry my romantic body

to the water — which is to say, when I draw

her a bath — I will rub peppermint oil into her

aching wrists, at which she will sigh the slowing

pulse of a sigh, this sliver of breath an invitation

to press harder: a call to tenderise. Now stop.

Gentler. 
Tomorrow, I will romance my body. But today,

under the three p.m. sun, I let her blister.

I click her dimpled knees as I lower us down

to lounge. When somebody asks how she is,

I will tell them she is doing well, as she quietly

unties her muscles’ mess of knots. In the evening,

with thumbs tucked underneath spaghetti straps

I will spell words out on the small of her back,

secrets kept by the curve of her spine. 
Tomorrow, as she blinks her eyes into the black

of the bathroom, a single candle tacked to the

sink, the shadows lapping at the plaster will look

like a dozen running horses, and in the shadow of

a stallion, she will spill her own secrets, folding them

into the bathroom walls, and watching

as they’re taken away.