viewing

it's late enough to feel alone,
the bedroom one populated island
 in the great sea of the darkened earth.
i'm watching her chest rise and fall,
her rhythmic breathing and the smoothness of it.
and how her fingertips scrabble at the bedsheets
(just curling, two fingers, three,
till the whole fist spasms, clutches, grasps)
that intimates the habits of her body.
the whole act is a code, a pulsing message
waiting to be translated from sounds and pauses
into the fitful expressions of her affection for me.
the inhale that starts a new thought,
the knees flexing then the fingers
and the toes curling and the biting of the lips and
the ascension of the timbre of her breath,
her eyelashes and syncopated respiration
beating out a message that needs no translation
for someone who knows her intimately, her impetus,
her abilities, the way she can lie
with her whole body at once.