Sleeping on the Diagonal

There’s a hand on my hip.  It traces down outer thigh and dances back.  The hazy, barely there morning filters in through a naked window, through an eyelid cracked open by the hand’s journey.  It grazes over crest of hip.  Skims small of back.  Traces a map around ribcage and up, plucking a nipple to awareness and submission.

I turn my mouth to yours, a reflex too late to stop.  You taste like home twice discovered.

At 5 am there is no thought.  It still slumbers.  There is no asking if you said yes last night because of the whiskey still lingering on your tongue.  There are no questions.  There is no pause.  There are only the fingers between my thighs.  Only a few first streaks of light glinting over the horizon.  Only a beard lightly scratching my neck.

Only your breath upon my ear, quickening with my own.

There is only this.  Only this moment.  Only a turn into you.  Only a blur of hoist and straddle, only an instinct from below the surface to take you in.  To spread my fingers through the soft nest of hair upon your chest and push up.  To breathe you in.  To swallow you whole.

Then the moment is over.

You call me sweetheart and I swallow the lie for a second, like I swallowed the “Pretty Lady” lie last night.  Because I needed the solace.  I needed the moment.  Then it clicks you’ve said “Sweetheart.  You don’t want this in you right now.”  I bolt from atop you as logic bolts awake, disoriented and disheveled.  An alarm screeching through a nebulous dream deferred.  You wipe yourself with a tissue.  I roll to the naked window.  Sun glares in to accuse me.

Day has broken.