Maps

Across your gentle curves,
between wide hips,  
dark swell of breasts
and jewelled lotus
hidden
within the softness
of your thighs
are stretch marks,
criss-crossed,
light and pale as moonbeams
against your evening skin
that you,
embarrassed,
have always tried
to hide
from me.

It makes me laugh
to see you curled up
in such discomfort,
gaze accusing,
a look so full of little shames
and angers at the fact
that
I will not turn
my gaze away.

But I never will,
for where you see
stretched skin
and tired aging flesh
I trace joys remembered
your curves in beauty
swelling with one son
and then
another,
singing both unborn
between my kisses
voices mingling,
your dark eyes
shining
holding mine enfolded,
enthralled
at tiny feet and fists felt
softly moving within you,
slow,
unseen
yet everything,
my future
on my cheek.

These are not the marks of shame
nor reminders of old age,
they are
maps
intricate in ancientness yet
new roads unfamiliar,
travelled joyous
and wondering,
disbelieving
of great fortune,
they are
summer dusks of winding lanes,
clear night highways
intersecting
at that secret inner place
you held our treasures
growing at our crossroad
until at last in pain and
fierce releasing passion
you gave them up
to me.

Do not hide these maps,
do not turn away from me,
lie still,
let me put my lips
upon them
tracing and remembering;
in their taste and touch
I cannot be lost
again in hate
as once I was,
for they guide me
always
back to you.