Palimpsest

You are a new(er) body in my arms,
or at least are new to my arms, but the marks you make
across my skin reveal the marks beneath, before you,
marks erased, or covered up, or wept out of my body
until you walked up and, wrapping your arms around me,
left your mark, your scent, upon my skin.
And while you are a new body, I've learned that
"You," the word, is a subtle palimpsest of
so many bodies before you -
and on parchment, papyrus, paper, chisel and stone,
as on skin, "You" is erased and rewritten,
erased and rewritten,
until it becomes almost unrecognizable,
and the edges of each letter fray and bend,
here a spider crack traveling to the corners of the page,
here the "O" stretching, elongating, swallowing -
developing a picture of something larger than you,
yourself, ever could have been alone.
Of course you haven't changed. Or you, or you, or you,
but the "you" I see, the "you" I read,
the "you" I write, is overlain with a new and separate
power, embodying the force of the you that is new to me.
Coming to the text, to the word, as a scholar approaches
an ancient scroll, uncovering layer upon layer of meaning,
I can extract all the meaning I imbued into the very word
I began uttering, truly, for the first time, only a
few short years ago. And in layer upon layer of meaning,
I find my identity, my skin, carved with the words
I allow you to become, that the person I am is made
up of so many "you"s. How many more words,
how many more layers, until the "I" is fully constructed
and finds itself within the final painting of you,
and how and when will I be able to show your portrait,
displayed upon my body, for all the world to see,
that "you" is you, and only you, and you are here, with only me?