The light and air cut
our bodies
into sharp shapes,
making this mine and
that not,
keeping you bound
in your cellular garb.

I clamber toward you
anyway.

Your skin fence
remains in place, its
barbs prickly things.
I approach, and each
organ bag
in me is nicked
by your boundaries. My eyes,
razor scratched. My stomach,
split. My valves open,
draining the fist of heart tissue.

I cannot untie your
knotted cells, so tightly
woven, or fit between
the fence bars.
I cannot build a bridge here.

I slink away to sew
the skin that is tattered and
reinflate the lungs that have sagged and
close the fist.

A knowing settles like birds
that I can never be
alone.

My slapped nerves and patched
flesh. The bald-faced
crawl back to you. A
               willingness
to do it again.