I love pale skin

Frail imperiled

Hitherto unheralded limbs

Delicate and drowsy

Pasty and blousy

Marked by hair and mole

And insistent red cell

Eager beneath translucent sheath

Icy bone

            Hungry for heat.

A fruit you want

Ripe and red

Ready to rot at a moment’s hesitation -

True there is joy in suppuration

But it shouldn’t be too easy.

I can be the sun that warms you

I can burn knowing

            Onto your surface

Coax the stone from your flesh

And ready you           

                        To bloom.