A Poem: A Life of Seasons

You put your hand in the dirt and laughed
Rain-patterned baldness
that was your joke about the spring
how nothing ever grew in the first few weeks of March
in the summer
when my back was tanned in criss-cross patterns
from working underneath the trellis in the garden
you called me sun-kissed and moved your hand
through each individual ridge on my spine
when you wore what we would come to call
your autumn’s veil of red eyes and yellow skin
I would lean over and tell you all about cinnamon and
pumpkin-flavored coffee
you smiled and I could see how your lips wanted to bleed
but where they cracked and cut it was white
like winter snow.