Graduation Night

The night sky gasps and exhales and the stars swell out from within the folds of the navy blue sky.  Twilight now, and heaven is open and pondering its own fragility.  You are to my left and the wind, the first breeze of the summer, carries our mingled silent breaths somewhere else; maybe to the trees, or maybe to the ponderous, world weary stars.

I had run away from you, and you had chased me--laughing, as we moved up the hill past the low hanging boughs of apple trees and pear trees, looping around an apricot tree before I let you catch me.  Or maybe, before you let me be caught.  Your arms looped around my waist and you pulled me into your kiss.  We tumbled to the earth, cratering the parched grass with our bodies.

I roll away from you and my eyes turn upward, my fingers reaching out, grasping at your fingers that are larger than mine, but fit against mine as they lace like shoes tied together.  You become my anchor, my only purchase on earth to keep me from floating away up into the stars to settle on the moon.  I try to remember how to breathe like a younger version of myself--before running stole my air.  We are not old yet, but infinity stretches up above us like the night sky.

I roll on my side and you turn your head and smile at me in the darkness; white and even, they move the darkness around us and the stars are blotted out above me momentarily.  My fingers, pale and trembling in the wan moonlight, trace the musculature of your arms, kiss the contours of your lips, and skate across the planes of your brow.  You are beautiful, exquisite; mine.

Our silhouettes reshape the nighttime scenery on the hill, and your arms create a small niche in the universe as we lay side by side staring up at the stars.