The light spilled over her cheeks
as if God had knocked over a water glass.
It trickled down over her right eyebrow,
over the bridge of her nose,
falling to the left ever so slightly
until it reached her bottom lip.

To my unfocused eyes,
she was an angel.
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes,
taking in shallow breaths
as if any sudden move might disturb her surface.
Ripples on a pond
I thought if I touched her she might burst apart,
and dissolve into a million tiny pieces of air.

I couldn’t move.

But she could.

With a slight furrow of her brow
and a fluttering of eyelashes
she faced me.
She didn’t look onto my face
but rather traced my outline with her gaze.

"Forgive me,"

she said quietly.

"There is nothing more beautiful than you are over your shoulder but I find I cannot meet your eyes.”