knitting for you justwrite

There are petals beneath your eyes in the morning, when you wake up in my bed and I try to remember falling asleep but only remember dreaming about stains on floral print dresses and about long blonde hair tied back, trying not to catch the light. In church, the sun streaming through the stained glass always made the skin on my hands look blue while I prayed, as blue as shadows, as ink, as babies the moment they're born, people just before they've tasted air for the first time. I can't remember that either, can't remember if I felt the cord being cut, the ends of yarn falling like snowflakes around my footprints. I knit you hats because I don't know how to talk to you. I knit you hats and leave them on top of the basket in my closet because I'm not sure which color you'd like best. I never ask. You asked once to see the fingerprints laced across my thighs, the blue skin looking like blue light, like shadows, like a newborn face. I try to convince myself bruises are ink that won't wash away. I tie knots with sticks and fold my voice into them, hoping you'll hear me in the patterns. When I finally show you my closet, you ask why I wasted so much yarn, say you've never been cold. But your breath is frost against my neck. I break the icicles off your lips before you wake up in the morning. I pour my sun rays into your skin and watch the petals bloom beneath your eyes just before they open.