a poem for luke

I want to write a poem about things
I would never tell my mother about
but even in the quiet of a poem I am
afraid to mention the way your teeth
clasped down on my shoulder, how your
calloused hands clung to my chest
and thigh as if they were a lifeline, the way
my fingers could never find enough traction
in the hair on the back of your head, how
neither of us could move afterward, how
I wanted to hold the following shower's warmth
in my arms for months, years. More than
anything, I want to write your name
on my body for every time we came together
that day, but my mother might read this
and I would die from the shame
of loving you as desperately as I do.