Tonight's Poet Corner: Beautiful, Dangerous

Beautiful, Dangerous
by Belinda Roddie

Your nails - your beautiful, dangerous
fingernails - they leave red trails across
my naked back, exposed as the sheets
slip like ghosts from my shoulders. They
are swirling in miniature galaxies, each
cuticle encircling individual stars and
worlds that can never communicate with us.
It's interesting to feel your painted cosmos
scratch, rather than burn, my skin. I do not
leave this warm bed with new tattoos.

Last month, you mocked Midas by dipping
your fingers into gold. Your touch is better
than his, though - it certainly creates a spark
across my body, the hairs stimulated like
flaxen lightning rods in pale soil. And before
that, I found the forest tantalizing, or at least
the one that crept along the borders of your
hands. Again, who knows what creatures
linger in mushroom circles or bury their
beards in willow trees; all I see from here
is the green canopy, and the sunlight makes it
glow with dust and sweet old-fashioned dreams.

Your nails - your beautiful, dangerous
fingernails - they leave their marks without
intending to. You always apologize should
a welt linger on my chin, or the flesh on
my cheek scabs after you try to caress it.
The rest of you is safe enough; you ought
to keep your claws. Though they aren't
retractable, their keratin is meant to be
turned into landscapes. And as you are
quite the artist, you may as well make the
most of the canvasses that you have.