Bigguy

Steel-Clad Fingers

He took her face in his hands

With the gentleness only possible

With steel clad fingers

Yearning only to not crush what they held.

She had fear in her eyes

And he wanted to make her feel safe and

To have her

But her skin blackens beneath 

Even his tenderness.

She lies: “I trust you.”

And he answers in kind:

“It doesn’t hurt me.”

 

They cling to each other

Like frost to doomed sprouts

In the long twilight

of  late summer

And the fear of the encroaching night

is all that keeps them moving.