Animal forebearance. Like a dream of that. Touch fingers to a picture. Be patient in remembering. Only a small sigh in the settling of skin and bones. Wait. Wait. Curling around myself, circling to stillness.
I think, at first that it is the way someone looks into you that makes it possible to wait. But that is wrong. It is not that they see, but that you do not look away.
A line of lighter skin against dark, a scorch line. He reaches towards the table, eyes down. He was sad then. The scorch along his shoulder where the sun seared skin. A twelve hour day, sweating in one hundred plus heat, expiating his half of our demons. I touch my fingers to the picture, to the line of burnt skin, to the cheekbone. Eight months later, I can still be sorry we made each other sad.
Over two years later, I still do not look away.
Sometimes, it is my only tether.
Like a dream of that.
