How To Know A Body

May 15, 2014

Everyone should know what the eyebrow of someone else feels like under the brush of their thumb. Both brows. Late at night when the eyes below them are closed.

Everyone should know the feel of closed eyelids below the surface of their lips. One eye. And then the other. Everyone should get to see how those eyes charge with sparks when they open and look at your face. Smiling. Having just planted two gentle kisses.

Everyone should explore a body. Slowly. Save the passion for another time. Everyone should have long moments of exploring the body of someone they love.

And here is the divot below your neck where water pools if you are on your back in a tub. And here are the smooth sides connecting your chest to your back. Sides like silk. Like a baby.

And here is a wild hair on your shoulder. And another. And another. You will ask me to help you remove them, but first I make their acquaintance by rolling them between two of my fingers. Strange, this hair. I touch my own shoulder, bare and smooth, and wonder how we were made so differently.

And here are your arms, dotted with freckles. Wide at the wrist. My wrist is delicate. Almost breakable. Like a bird's skeleton. And here are your fingers, thick and a bit calloused. Cuticles unkempt and fingernails in various states of having been chewed on. I inspect the white half-moon shape on each nail.

Everyone should spread out the fingers of their hand and hold it up to the hand of their lover.

And here is your belly, bigger than when we first met. I put my ear against it and hear your tummy rumble. It is soft and comfortable. I want to sleep like this. Everyone should rest upon someone's belly.

And here are the shape of your shoulders beneath my hands. Strong shoulders. Wide shoulders. And here is your neck. Everyone should let their lips rest on the neck of a loved one. Just rest there. Everyone should feel the heartbeat of their lover on the tips of their lips. I can feel your heartbeat through your neck.

Here are your thighs. Massive. Powerful. Crushing. I cannot wrap my hands around them. Your calves, wide. Your ankles, thick. Everyone should lay on their back and ask their lover to hold one leg up in the air next to theirs. Everyone should see one of their legs and one of their lover's sticking up in the air like the way children do. Everyone should see their toes wiggle alongside the toes of their partner.

Toes. This one and that one. My second toe is longer than my first. Your second toe is much shorter. Our toes have been switched, somehow, perhaps? I run my finger along the bottom of your foot. You are not ticklish here. I am.

Everyone should know where their lover is ticklish.

And here is a back, wide and smooth. A sifter full of freckles deposited on your shoulders. Everyone should try to kiss each and every freckle of their lover. It is impossible. But everyone should try.

And here is your lower back, the part that causes you so much discomfort. And this is how to apply pressure to get right to the very spot where it aches. Everyone should know exactly how to relieve the discomfort of a particular troublesome muscle of their lover.

And back to the face. Here is the nose. The perfect nose. I can trace its shape in a dark room and see the glow of your teeth. The feel of a forehead under a flat palm. The soft fuzz of an earlobe between two fingers. The ridges of a lip and the part between.

Everyone should feel the shape of the back of their lover's head. Hair between fingertips. Cradling, almost like an infant. Everyone should be able to do this. Not once. Not twice. Many, many times.

Everyone should be able to explore the body of their lover until they are certain there is nothing left on the surface to explore. So in a darkened room, or with eyes closed, or wrapped under a sheet in a brightly lit hospital, you can reach out to feel and say, "I know this face. I know these arms. I know these legs. This. This is a body I know well. This is the body of my lover."