She brushed her fingers over his cheek
and thought she saw his skin quiver.
She parted the corner of his mouth,
ran her finger the length of his lips,
and thought she saw his eyelids flutter.
She said,
Our love is a wave,
swelling and rising from the deep,
splashing and playing in the light on the sea.
He spit out her fingers and said,
Waves are merely surface phenomena,
a reaction to the brush of the wind
or the split of the sea by the hull of a ship.
They pass.
They rush and break on the shore,
spilling spreading foam,
spreading thin and slipping back
into the deep.
