Next to Him

It's not about the sex, really, it's not the ache of the bruised nipple or the burn left by his two-day-old beard in the crook of my neck where the pulse is taken, it's his breathing when asleep that draws me near. When I was seventeen, I'd check beside me, hope I hadn't rolled and squashed flat my one-year-old brother. His sigh on my ear, the rise and fall of air beneath his ribs, was a miracle to me. The nightly surprise of what I saw under the bulb's dim glow: I saw the small heart beating like wings unfolding in the body. Here, with this man, ideas of flight return.