Still sleep warm,
I am coaxed into
consciousness
by your fingers lazily
grazing the elastic
of my underwear.
That smooth plateau
between the mountains
of my hipbones: home.
Overnight, my shirt
has ridden up, too hot
in the California nights
neither of us are used to
yet, proven by the pool
of sweat beneath my
lower back. The sticky
staleness of my skin
matches yours.
We are anything but
a disaster, and still,
I am a fault line. Feeling
the tremors rumble low
in my belly, your overheating
hands the magma forcing
plates apart, revealing
the new earth beneath.
There's danger in my inhale,
the risk of being shaken to
the core and unfixable.
Yet not even an earthquake
could divide us: love.


**V. K.