I'm wearing your brother's coat as I write this; the sun
here is bright but deceitful—nothing like Puerto Rico's.
When you fall in love, don't start your life
together in fall—we couldn't stand to wait
to shed layers, expose skin. We were grateful then
for days on your beach, alone, though you wanted
us to keep you home from school. A few more years
and you'll understand this flush that isn't fever, this pounding
in the chest that won't turn you pale, blue. Even now
a metallic ticking near your heart urges you well, urges
you toward love. A tiny metronome coaxing the muscle
to keep up.
Your brother tells me you'll have surgery again:
every five years doctors will recharge you
at the expense of skin. I've seen angry red trenches
over your heart. When we were there, your mother said the scars
would likely fade—then confided to me her fears, though you
know them already. I know them too. I've seen the beaches—
so many women with endless, smooth skin
in trim bikinis. And at your sister's wedding, watching
your brother and cousins dance the merengue, my hips refusing
the quick, sexy side-to-side. What I'm trying to tell you
is that those hours—at a wedding,
your lover dancing with another woman,
or on the beach wanting to cover your skin—are so few.
That at night the sun puts out its red blaze,
and you climb, sleepy, into your car to go home.
that when you get there, your lover will offer his hands
to cool your sunburn, will ease
the straps from your shoulders and rub aloe he has bled
from the plant on the window sill for you. That his hands
will make their way from back, to shoulders, to breasts,
and he will notice the scars—he will run his fingers along them,
loving their strength, grateful for the protection they offer.