large, tender velvet.

 

The fold of soft, naked flesh when each of her four legs joins her torso –

the joints precise and small.

 

her body, its odor,

the color of sunlight boiled over a flame, boiled like sugar, to caramel.

 

A spine perfect in each warm vertebrae the size of a fist,

a spine expansive and solid beneath the rippled skin.

 

She is a world,

with river veins and eyes that are moons

her bare haunches two round laughing mountains.

 

It is impossible

to see all of her at once.

 

Years of love,

and all the curiosity

your own pale, translucent self can hold

will never unearth all the secrets she

harbors with such large, conscious grace.