It started around 5am. He threw his hand out in sleep and I captured it. Crushed it to my face and breathed his rough skin.
We drifted like that for a while and then he stirred. Opened out his fingers like the arms of a sea anemone and brushed my cheek.
Such a simple, simple act, a caress, a tender caress. We call it that because sometimes prosody is the only alternative to blithering "RAINFALL SPARKLES STARSHINE SNOWFLAKES TRAILING SUCKLING yeah you know that feeling you get of your guts caving in when someone suckles you that's simultaneously heaven and hell and it means LOVE!!!"
A dedicated Beat would do it, but the rest of us generally choose discretion over valor and say "a tender caress."
It moved to my lips, which were dry, and lingered there...
...and there I will leave you.
