Down the back of a lover:
burning blue oceans during a storm.

They built up gradually, from the time of birth;

 

Sky lines across the nose,

Laurel on the wrist,

Crushed midnight pine leaves smeared across an elbow,

Bruises running down a late neck,

 

Moments where sunset pink collided with sleepy blue

creating waves upon a beach,

 

Fresh marks inked behind an ear,

Tea spilled across a lap -- napkins to follow suit,

Copper rusting across a lane on someone’s trafficked shins,

Summer blue across fading lemonade hiding beneath an arm,

Earthen tiles in the palm of a singer,

Persimmons, cut fresh, disappearing into the belly button of a sunbather,

 

Watered down blue fading down the leg

of the person riding the 2’oclock train,

 

Ring on the knee of a biker where an old coffee mug had once resided,

Cut grass caught on the toe of a person in their splendid youth,

Molten blue cool as cornflowers on a springy southern calf,

The woodworker’s forearm stained the color of fine mahogany,

A stranger’s eye cradled by ashen ink tattoos,

 

The iris of a woman, found murdered upon a white pillar,

taken as a supernova keepsake,

 

Blueberry pie on a baby’s pinky,

Strawberry syrup in a thin stream across an abdomen,

Vines of blue-green coiling up the arm of a nurse

 

Like pristine ghost blue water they flow into one another;

overlapping,

forming cells,

spreading into every part of skin,

underneath nails,

in between toes,

the entirety of a skull

 

Some people were the colors they wore,

some people had a single color; multiple shades of pink, orange, red, green, blue:

cushions on a pristine couch,

a tangerine that rolled off the table,

the nails of the secretary who ate a donut every morning,

the needles in the tree a golden crocodile walks past,

a glimpse in eyes dark enough to dive deep into

 

A woman with electric fingers down her entire face; barely blue,

waterlogged and clear.

 

A child with mustard on every knuckle but the last,

Stained lips the color of cheap wine,

A person, entirely red, coffee in hand, suit pressed and plumped,

Purple ink dripping from the nail bed of the bus driver,

The woman running away with raspberry tears marking her path

 

A face stained with inky marks was a sure tell sign

of someone who had encountered many loves in their life.

 

They were unavoidable,

Appearing anywhere they could,

Layered, obscuring, vibrant

Occurring,

Inevitable,

Appearing,

Fading,

Disappearing,

Reappearing

 

Created.