Outside, bright leaves batter the window screens.
Here, you are a warm weight pinning me
to now. We will never be cleaner to each other.
You have yet to scrape the flint of your will
against mine, I have yet to hurt you
with my fervent need to make you always kind.
Sometimes on purpose we won’t be what the other
wants, and part of me will curl like matchstick char.
I know what’s coming, and all I can do is sit
with you through these wind-pummeled days
when all you need—breast, shoulder, capable hands—
I give and you receive without the spark of words.
These hours escape us as we sit huddled around
our double warmth: my palm fitted to the perfect globe
of your skull, the worm-pull of your need
burying its head deep inside my left breast.