My Hands Take the Shape of You

The windows frosted with fog, the air sweaty and smug, I lift my eyes toward the morning mist which hovers low in the trees. There is something about the very early part of the day, before it’s really the day yet. This time when you know the light is coming but even when it first appears it is so gentle as to almost be only a suggestion of any kind of time at all. Nothing is pressing yet. Everything is soft, hums with the possibility of elegance, and elegance only.

Lover is a soft word. It has no other way to be. It is soft in my mind and soft in expression on the page. Inside the poem. Rolling down off my tongue like smooth white sheets tumbling lazily from the bed. It has been quite some time since I held that word with any kind of care, any kind of tenderness.

It is ten years ago or maybe more, and I want to be so tough. I want to be the kind of invincible they promise I can be with the right lipstick and sky rocket heels. Love is for the needy. Fear does not exist. To think back on it now is a swollen type of sadness, nostalgia but also grief. The curtains sweep back into the room, gliding on the faint summer breeze, sweet grass and honeysuckle. The fizz of the dawn resting cool on my skin.

Before there was you, I would imagine myself without being able to picture my face, my hair, my body in motion, walking into a room. In my memories, I did not exist in form only in concept. But now I see clearly my own presence. I can see my body draped along the mattress, my face has its features, my hair has its cascading wave. Something about the way you see me, piercing like eyes of extraterrestrial nature. You observe with a keenness. An energy which penetrates, resists distraction with a pulsing, strange sort of ease.

I turn in bed. I reach for my glass of water. I remember you like missing someone I’ve never met. The image of you against my palms. My fingers along the hollow of my throat. My hands resemble the shape of you.