if I asked, beckoned you close
whispered sweets and teas and
soft words, sentenced comfort
opened my arms and begged
you there, would you come?

take off your hoodie, your top
bras on the floor, maybe mine
maybe yours, maybe from both
or just me, I think, if it's you there
reading- the one I am thinking of

no clothes but underwear, because
that's a comfortable thing, to feel the
sheets against skin, flesh to flesh, and
yet to keep something covered, fine
hairs in check, no friction, so we can
slip close together, smooth, lithe, solid

only a portion of our heads on the
pillows: half on, half off, equally so
chins sunk into the mattress, blanket
overhead, a cave for just the outlines
of our faces, and the meeting of both
our breaths, warming bare chests

flushed nose, *******, tummy, shoulders
plush under palm as touched, held, gentle
this is a new kind of ***, of making love
and it involves just your eyes and hands
above the waist, rolling over the hips, to
study. revise me. learn each crinkle and
every dip. all my curves, a puzzle from
each pimple, the roundabout of my ears
my see-saw lips, umbrella eyes that don't
and wont keep out the rain that will flow
over my hilled cheeks, and maybe yours
if you find where I am wanting you to be
close, warm, plush, alone and lying with me

if we hadn't have met that way
would we have met any other?
that's the question I hate to think.

there can't be an answer to it, I feel
because you definitely did come to
and are in my life, but still, even so

would I have known you in the way
we hold each other now? so close? so
deeply fallen in our time, in each other?

I cannot say, but I can still hope, even
if that hoping is silly, since you have me
and I have you, and we have that weight

of knowing the other is in our hands, trust
like non other. keeping each other safe, like
our song promises us. close, close in hand

we understand it was circumstances, lucky
lucky circumstances getting us close enough
to one another for our souls to connect, and touch

we understand it could have gone another way
but fortune is ours, and we ruled those circumstances
king and queen of those gifts granted sweetly to us

and from those circumstances, we made vows
to keep each other safe throughout the seasons
of our life. how lucky. how fortunate. how lovely.