Soft skin, like silk, draws hands caress
in darkness as we warp and weft
our fragile frames in gyrating games,
crisscrossing lust with lies and trusting thighs,

ties.

We are bruised blankets baying
on beds of yesterday’s toils;
cotton soils and sweaty spoils.

Silk, like soft skin, slips from touch
too swiftly, too much sewn between seams
emblazoned with who we have become
and who we had before; I held his hand
in a taxi while thinking of another,

long departed.

We kiss alone but there is an orchestrated
orgy of others in every embrace, like a hunger
that cannot be abated, like a stain that cannot
be shifted from sheets we once saturated.

In the darkness, beneath the hands caress,
on silk, soft like skin, so supple, we slip
into gullible folds of flesh, not quite fresh,
trying to spell new names on withered frames
from those left over letters of old flames.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/left-overs