We fall into each other like swirls of paint
on slick paper. The canvas of your body
I color with my own, lips staining
your chin, cheek, torso. Brush strokes
from your lashes – I inhale sharply –
and our pillowcases shimmer like twin moons.

Summer slinks into autumn and the moon
lingers longer each night, painting
scenes of winter in our minds, sharpening
the need to keep heat in our bodies.
We sit on your porch; the breeze strokes
the chimes above our heads. Anticipation stains  

my dreams, memories of the past stain
yours and we reflect each other’s pain like moons.
Still, every evening at the stroke
of six, we clink glasses, paint
our future in bold colors. Like bodies
of water separated by miles of desert, sharp

thirst clenches our throats, sharper
than silence. Once I asked why tears stain
things (faces, pillows). Our bodies
were tangled in bed, a hangnail moon
glowing through the blinds. “Paint
stains, sure, but tears?” Stroking

my hair, you said not to worry (stroking
my hair was your way to quiet my sharp
tongue). The side of the house you painted
the year the cicadas came now is stained,
covered in craters like the moon.
I studied you that day, how your body

arched to meet the wood. Your body –
I think of it sometimes when I’m stroking
myself with the blinds open so the moon
can watch. The ache is sharp
each morning when I see the sky stained
with another day, rot infecting the paint

on the part of the house where your body
cut a sharp shadow. I want to stroke your paint-
stained back, on your skin trace little moons.

From St. Louis, Katie Vagnino is a Visiting Assistant Professor at UW-Eau Claire where she teaches composition and creative writing. She is also a member of the Master Singers. Learn more about Katie here.