x

I stalk your image in photographs

internet photographs

tangibly harmless in

the ways that mean something

though not in mind

or, come on, in spirit neither

the internet has granted

me your private life

and I will scour the holiday

snaps, the days out snaps.

the other people’s wedding snaps

for nipple slips, accidental

gusset baring

then save to file

a scrapbook of the stolen gaze

of borrowed flesh

the lives of others

assembled into one of my own

shadow of a life

an apology of one

colonising your tenderness

we shared a single bed

in university accommodation

a south facing room

stifling as the sun came up

while you slept I peered beneath

the oversized shirt you

were wearing and saw

perfect pitch nipples like

valves on your small breasts

saw while you slept the suggestion of

pubic hair curled in the gap

between the waist band of

your knickers and your

flat brown stomach

and I touched your whole body

softly enough so as not to wake you.