The Plaster Wall

With my fingernail on the plaster wall I scratch lines each line a mark for each time you came into my sleep and on the wounds of the leather straps on my shoulder blade you placed a kiss. Each line a mark for each time I leaned my head on your chest and in rain upon rain wept in your arms in my dream in my heart. Each line of mine a mark a sign of being - on dead plaster - for each time we crossed all the barbed wire and reached each other slept together and turned green in the paradise of each other's caresses in every grain of wheat all around the earth to far away behind the plaster wall brimming with stripes of lines and alive now at the start of a new line - between the lines of the past - look look again a fresh line with my fingernail I scrape the mask of death and fall into your arms from head to foot smeared with plaster ...