After the shock of naked flesh on clammy sheets, of icy feet pressed sharp and burrowing into your warmer pair, or chilled air slithering and licking at our ears, after the shift of breasts on backs, of legs folding on legs and arms stretched out, or crooked around soft waists or under weary necks, we finally sleep, the night sinking around us, oozing like summer mud to fill the gaps between our skin and supple bones. On waking, we have fused, my shivering back drunk off the heat from your feverish chest, your flush cooled in the burrow of my throat ‘till we are tempered and on reaching out my hand I find it hard to tell where you begin and my own fingers end.
Ali Fischer