Waves of My Skin

Caleb Delos-Santos

You said to remember the rain
was to remind myself I have skin:

a kind of water of my own
that swells, gushes. I promised

to avoid busy roads, to not
sympathize with their cracks:

the ones that, when driving,
seem to fidget, in sound,

seem to throw a fit, as though
the forks in the roads are young

echoes of lost currents, gone rapids.
We kissed goodbye, an echo ago.

Our lips touched like hands
passing back and forth a wine glass.

We touched goodbye. My palms rippled
as I let you go. Less of a release

and more of a push
off into a river, and all its shuffling.

I drifted to the driver’s seat.
Your hand became a wave.

Before the car jerked awake,
I mentioned it was going to rain.

I said I could feel it in my skin.
You said to remember it.

Since I left, the splits in the roads
have not whined. Rain has yet to show.

But the moon is colored sienna.
It unfurls like a second sunset.

And I still sense all our echoes
rolling through waves of my skin.