Unbuttoning (poetry)

He laid back into the arm of the sofa
and let me strip him to the waist.

I worked the buttons of his dress shirt
methodically, counting

(there were so many buttons)

I felt
I would never reach the shirt tail

never release him
fully,

(until I did).

His skin was cold and seemingly
lit of its own. It was

the sickly purple gray of a hot
oncoming

(interminable) night.

His chest and abdomen
all full of little scars.

He opened his languid arms, wrists
still buttoned

(and bound)

into the shirt as I bowed
to kiss

the ancient wounds.
“Like you,” he said

(graciously)

“I know something of war.”

-M. Ashley

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