Asleep

The nascent dawn reveals you lying motionless. The white sheet over your hip covers you like the sand covers the flanks of the mountains, which, I see, rise behind you. You both glow pink in the growing light. You lie so stilly, your chest imperceptibly rising and falling, your limbs long and beautiful. Your history as a dancer is revealed in the graceful arc of your arms as they encircle your head.

This is my favorite time of day. It is the time when you speak to me of love, desire, devotion, and connectedness from the land of sleep; the time when your very busy brain stops calculating and arranging the future and turns its attention away from the world of the day. It is when you tell me what I want to hear most, the unedited truth.

Your body knows the touch of mine, and mine the touch of yours. I often search for your hand or hip or well-muscled arm or shoulder during the night, but especially at dawn. I seek contact with you – there is so much to feel.

Sometimes when I lay my hand on you it feels like I am floating my hand on the surface of a warm glassy sea at low tide. Sometimes, I feel life thrum through your body; I connect with the electric surge that makes me want to rouse you and thrill to your intentioned touch. Your pulse, your rhythm at rest captures mine -- like a strong river incorporates into its own strength those who come to it.

In the dawn hour, when I touch you, fugitive sounds escape your sleep-silenced mouth; small, needy sounds that are never given waking voice. Strong stone butch, you mewl like a newborn kitten when I stroke you. Your body moves toward me when I touch you, seeking the love and reassurance in my fingertips, eager for more while your brain slumbers on fighting figments or bound to drudgery.

You tell me then that my love is your heart’s ease as your love is mine. The growing day promises endless beauty stretching out before us. Perhaps tonight you will fall into sleep with your head on my breast and your hand over my heart, listening to stories spun of butch derring-do and femme delights.