26 Cuts

I wanted to ask 

If you kept all of your kings in the back row,

Or if you knew someone who deliberately cheated in a game of Battleship,

Or if you ever felt sad and fucked up for no reason at all.

Anything to start a conversation.

Anything that would make me look at your face.

 

You could’ve carved anything you wanted:

Grids, graphs, plaid, maps, wiring, chainmail, flowers, 

hell—99 balloons!

Instead, you chose tick marks, using tallies to score

A game you were undoubtedly losing.

 

I counted 26 cuts on your ochre forearm,

Some devil’s alphabet, maybe Morse code.

Dot Dash Dash Dash.

Either way I couldn’t read it.

 

For 75 minutes I sat like an Eliot protagonist, wondering

Do I Dare? and Do I Dare?

Dare to ask about the constellations on your skin—

Too afraid to connect the dots myself.