Someone's ink and needles Have written skin riddles On his body bare before me except for these sketches Signal and cemaphore For things he won't talk about Quiet and shut about his padlocks and latches My fingers trace his pictures and at each his breathe catches He says why are you bare Bare as the day day you were born born from your mother I say so you can tattoo With the marks of lovers The red trails of his fingers The bumping pallate of his boney hip Sharp tooth beneath his softest lip The kiss obscures the bite He sketched his designs on me all through the night He finished and was sleeping so i jumped the early flight Now a thousand miles away With the passing of the days Your colours fall from my skin like the moon smooths out the waves So quietly they left that i didn't see them fade I don't need ink and needles To write me my excuse The body does tattoo itself With old age and abuse With lines pooled from the inside drawn from pain and revelry My body will tattoo itself with what you mean to me