Your Dirty Fingernails (a supposed terza rima)

This is in the rough. Help me fix it. It falls apart.

Your Dirty Fingernails

It was not the gilded black of your voice, the warm

Surge of your exalting mouth, or even the slow

Ebb of your cigarette smoke, concealing the form

Of your eyes, dark and relishing in the come and go

Of my laughter, which buckled the rush of my breath

And beckoned the cautious thump, then steady roll

Of my heart, but rather the fingernails, dressed

With dirt, that left two red scratches across

My cheek as your hand reached to caress

Me in a way that might have been gentle, had

Riotous affection not overcome you. It was the imperfect

Part, dirty and not easily scrubbed, which glossed

My lips with love and acceptance of your dirt, the defects

You exude, you create, you understand, you reflect.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/8kppbi/sometimes_the_iron_rusts_without_the_rain_first/dz9q9ih

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/8kq6oj/song_of_the_ramblin_halflin/dz9nxyn