Prose: Love, I

 16 Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful.

Our couch is green;
17     the beams of our house are cedar;
    our rafters are pine.

-Song of Solomon I ESV

It means the world to me to touch your head. Flesh over cranium, soft flesh, so simple, so expected. Yet underneath this flesh are lesions; lesions like the soft, muscular, segmented bodies of leeches that can lengthen and contract. In our bed I lengthen and contract in rhythm with you. It means the world to me to lie in bed and sleep, face-smashed on the pillow. To hide away in my cocoon. To awake to you in the night and know our bodies can meet and touch: meet and touch. Our bodies wait all day for this. They rise from the crumpled sheets with a mist of dust and dander in the sunlight through the curtains, drink dark coffee in well worn mugs, attend to matters, and sit on the porch in our rocking chairs at dusk. The sun sets behind the house. It is not our house but the beams hold up above us.