Bees

I let the acid wash off my skin,
like the burn of bee sting.

The sting of love, unrequited.
Your fingerprints still smudged
on my mirror.

I blame you for years
of a bed half cold.

I blame you for
the way my lips
chap in the winter.

I blame you for 
the oily smears
across my own face.

Indentations into my
body of your DNA,
I wonder how your
fingers were so oily.

You left them here,
that was all,
and so I never relieved
the blinking of my answering machine,
a tape full of your voice
I strung across my walls.

I will never scrub hard enough
to get myself clean,
to remove all the marks
of you,
of your own body
and hands against mine.

I will never wash the sheets
enough to wash out all
of your skin and our sin
and the dark nights
when coyotes cried
across the ridge.

Across my forehead,
your thumbprint lays
flat and undisturbed.
I left no scars
on you,
never burnt you 
with birthday candles
when they fell over as you carried the
flaming cake.

Never left a knick in your knee,
never surprised you shaving
so you bled.

And I still sleep 
in the half cold sheets
with your smell deep in the fibers.
With the traffic lights playing
games on my ceiling.
We would play with them,
never winning.

I cannot wipe away the oily stains
you left across me;
a smudge.