He's rolled again onto his cracked rib—

and moaning in his sleep until the pressure's
off the fracture, reaches till his fingers
touch my back, and leaning his chest there,
brings his knees under my own.
But who could say this is a burden?
Or that I'm even holding him,
when his arm has come around me
and his face is in my hair?
And whether it's pain
or pleasure brought him here—
where he stirs beneath me now
and sends his breath across my neck?
Who could count the times I've slept
with him—and waking in the night
have found us face to face like God and Adam?
And in the morning on the window,
a single veil of vapor, so I can no longer tell
whose breath is whose.
It would be terror, finding myself so,
but years ago he left me
in a one-man boat
to paddle out on Mendon Pond
where dragonflies were mating as they flew.
And drifting on an unknown depth,
and not a soul in sight, I put aside
my terror in that boat filled with his breath
as I understood the way he held me.
There are some who understand displacement—
the ratio of weight to water—
and in the morning in their classrooms,
small children will demonstrate the principles
by dropping half-filled jars in tanks
to show what sinks, what floats.
But in that boat I learned no laws of matter
but saw instead—how with instinct or some grace—
we might find the thing to hold us unrestrained—
and buoy us where we choose to go.
I floated there joined to his breath
and let the water take me
for something lighter than I am.
I felt his lightness move beneath me then—
and as he leans his weight
I feel that lightness now.