After The Pillow Book

You call me to the bath, where by evening light before bed I rub the ointment into your maculate back. I place my hand between the wings of your scapulae, where you cannot reach, cannot see—the arc of your life revealed in its pattern of coffee-colored spots—and hover there awhile, remembering how we watched the lover read the manuscript painted on the skin of his beloved; how he pressed the words to his chest and face—and cried out. The arteries in my palm open, their warmth rising between us as I massage you, neither sexual nor umbilical, this connection—you trusting your back to me, and me with no deceit. Only salve, only unguent. Only balm.