Love Set You Going Like Rock

"Love set you going like a fat gold watch" - Sylvia Plath, Morning Song

This morning we covered you in tiny rocks that we found on the beach. One by one we lathered the edges and placed them on your skin. You looked like a mosaic except there was too much skin showing so we collected seashells and zebra mussels and covered the lines between the rocks leaving only the coral of your nipples open. You sat in the tree and I imagined the bark peeling off the tree and onto your body hugging the curve of your back and your bum. In actuality though, you sat there on the bottom branch and you spread your legs, so not only was the coral of your nipple showing but the coral of your lady as well. In the evening, the fire was raining on our faces, and we stared at you still covered in rocks and shells and we made you a geranium bulb necklace and tied it round your neck and you sat there staring blankly.

This morning you woke up with tiny pills covering your body. I wanted to lick them and make a paste and use it to stick fish scales one by one to your epidermis. I went to the water and caught a fish and then I killed it and shaved its scales off. I glued the fish scales one by one to your right arm and stared at you and imagined how fine of a mosaic you would make if only I could cover the lines between the scales. I sat quietly and waited for the crows to come and I killed one and I took its feathers and I used them to fill in the spaces. Later I found you by the fire with coals skipping across your nipples, your arm still covered in scales and feathers. I wondered who let you fall asleep at the fire with so little material covering your skin. I wanted to smear the coals black and cover you with sand and leave you there for the day, maybe pour water over you and turn the sand into mud but I just left you. I imagined putting you in the tree but I knew the sand would fall off without any moisture to make it stick, so I left you staring.

This morning when you woke up, the scar on your face was shining red, so I went to the beach and grabbed pieces of grass from the shore and I pasted them on your face with clay that I found at the bottom of the bay. You lay there the entire time as though you had never woken while I started at the top of your face, pasting weeds past your eyes, over your cheekbones, down across your lip to your chin. You looked fine, like a mosaic, pieces of skin separated by lines of waxy green. I imagined you as part of the beach, even thought of moving your body to the new ecosystem at the edge of the shore. Your scar now protected by the grass would not be affected by the sun.

This morning I told you how lovely your eyes would be if they were balls of glass and you let me shatter them to flatter the sun. You told me you wanted a brooch but your words could not be pasted so I took you to the bay and I threw you in and I watched you lie there, imagining you as a rock, completing the mosaic of the water.