Blink

Where breath serves as the force
Which causes our faces to hover
An inch or less apart:

I see you blink--
And the soft reopening
Of your ocular sheaths--
Like garage doors for cinematic spacecraft--
Undoes my
undoing;

I see your gaze,
Hazel green
Like the earth,
And meet it
with mine;
the honesty confronts me

hard and
real, in
technicolor:

The dark of the theatre
Shades the worst of you
Ever from me

You are only these things
In this moment:
The soft warmth of your lips
Soft warmth of your breath
Soft warmth of the tip
Of your nose
Soft warmth of your hands
Grazing my neck and face;
Soft warmth of delicate
'Mmm's we exchange:

How can something so tall
Fold upon itself so
Gently?

I see you blink--
And this intermission
Grants me my breath

That I suck in
By your exhales
Soft at first: warm, smooth, pliant--
Then harder, rougher, 

leaden.

. . . . . .

© erika s. haines 2014