I wake where embers never died,
Still tangled in the sheets we made,
Your thigh a pillow where my sighs
Unravel every word we saved.
The sun, that jealous peeping thing,
Spills gold across your shoulder’s curve,
And I trace dawn along your skin
With fingertips that never swerve.
Last night you whispered secrets sweet
In languages no mouth could form,
And now your breath, a heated hymn,
Still makes my steady heartbeat storm.
You stretch; a slow and arching bloom,
A lazy cat in morning’s keep,
And I, the luckiest of men,
Would trade my dreams for waking sleep
Like this: your ankle locking mine,
Your smile of mischief yet to come,
The sheets a rumor half-confessed
Of everything we’ve yet to sum.
So let the coffee sit awhile,
Let clocks forget their petty pace;
The night was lovely, true, my dear,
But morning shows your sleeping face,
And that’s a feast I’ll savor slow,
With lips that know the road by heart,
From collarbone to pulse’s thrum;
A map I’ve memorized like art.
You murmur something half-asleep,
I answer somewhere south of words,
And suddenly the day begins
The way the finest mornings should:
With hunger, laughter, tangled limbs,
And you; my favorite way to wake,
My slow sweet burn, my endless ache,
The fire I never want to slake.