prologue

you wouldn't want to live to be one hundred and ten,
but you promised another eighty years.

who am i to protest?

i wear the smile you gave me and lie
as still as i can, failing to imagine
a million green miles stretched ahead in
a time where hours are measured in colours.

i turn to you with sleepy eyes
and you comment on the way the sun lights my hair
like you did when we were new.
when i blushed and silently said 'thank you'.

not to you, but for you.

now i press closer and marvel at the body
whose hardening edges reveal a tenderness.

savour the feeling and contradiction of loving
your skin against mine yet wanting to penetrate through.
the desire to reach deeper with indelicate
metaphorical hands and touch the core that is you.

in this tangle of bodies your eyes say it all.
the fine line between inner and outer crossed.
leaning in to kiss you i know
beneath hands like yours angels burn.