He lays in bed next to me, close
like the monarch to his woven chrysalis.
“Why don’t you look at me?”
I ask the copper crook of his nose in profile against a sun-softened curtain.
His eyes flicker, following the colors on the ceiling, his lashes shimmer like dew.
He wields his tenderness like a scalpel to my chest.
“Because it hurts you to be seen,”
He turns his face to mine
and I ignite.