A recycled poem I wrote in 2005. When I was a prickly pear :D

“I want to tell you that I am afraid,”
her mouth confessed. Her eyes denied all knowledge
except for a thigh splayed in the dark, a white highway
she had traveled many times. Her fingers sketched
a drawing on the table top: A head, two limbs,
a fish tail, skewered in a trident as an afterthought.
I could feel hair prickling on my arms,
Electricity that is blue, pale skin,
As her arm bent and flaunted smooth strong
something slippery and razor-sharp.
A flick of the wrist sends hair crashing into her nape.
I think of pebbles polished by waves
washing up onto shore. Her eyes are dark like that.
I think of salt mixed into bleached desert sand
carried up by wind. Her mouth stings like salt
rubbed into the hollows of sweat-wet pores.
“Do not tell me,” I finally answered after her interest
turned into boredom. I see her homecoming
in the glint of pebbles in the sun, in sand kicked up
as she walked home alone.
And I stayed.