In the second that follows, I traverse the gap, the two and a half steps between us, lean down, and place my head on your chest, my hands over your shoulders like a clambering dog or an awkward first dance, and I am holding you, and I can feel the warmth of you, the miraculous heat of life in you, and I can feel a breath expanding within your chest, rising and ascending, and I ride it to its peak, and I feel your arms close around me — “Why are you crying?” — fold around me the way dawn embraces the dark until it’s day, until it’s gone, until I can no longer distinguish my body from yours, and I’m flooded with everything that has ever passed between us, every word, spoken and unspoken, every glance, met and unmet, every regret, fear, question, answered and unanswered, every kiss, every insecurity, assuaged and invoked, every moment of contact between our bodies, an archive of touch, your fingers pressing my forehead to check my temperature, gripping my arm in a shopping mall, grabbing my hand as you slip on ice, wiping sleep from my eyes with a spit-slicked finger, crawling into my bed at night to hold me as I cried over who knows what, likely nothing at all, likely just because it was night and I wanted you near, every living sensation my body has ever known and every living sensation your body has ever known as if they were one and the same, as if honey coated both our throats and bound our tongues to the top of our mouths, a drop of sweat running down the length of our back, fresh dough squeezed through the spaces between our fingers, our bare feet against the cool smooth rocks on the river’s edge, a school of minnows nipping at our thighs, the errant hairs on a man’s back, the gallop of a horse ricocheting through our pelvis, our hand passing through hot smoke, the smell of the earth after rain, the light and colour of rubbed eyes, a pebble in our shoe, a popped blister, a rope burn, chafing skin, a spider bite, a lover’s eyelash against our neck, the smell of his breath in the morning, the smell of frying onions, coriander, rosemary, sage, a sprig of mint, mint tea, rosewater, the smell of woodsmoke, the tree in our backyard that smells like semen every July, the smell of burnt hair, burnt toast, burnt plastic, of an orange being peeled, of the air charged by lightning, the sound of rain percussing a tin roof, of distant construction, distant laughter, a city at night as heard from a nearby mountain, a skein of geese passing low overhead, the cool dampness of morning fog, the afterimage of a camera flash, the afterimage of leaves on pavement, condensation on a mirror and running our hand across it, dipping fingers in ointment, touching Grandpa’s rough hand, touching an eyeball, pulling a hair from a bowl of soup, peeling a loose fingernail, peeling a sunburn, peeling off wet clothes, feeling the weight of gravity return as the water drains from a bathtub, the glint of a kite flying, the glint of sun on the water, a hard candy clacking against our teeth, holding warm bread, holding a warm baby, the smell of a baby’s head, the sound of our heart, the sound of a lover’s heart, the smell of our urine after eating asparagus, the iron taste of our blood, the taste of dust kicked up from a passing car, the shade under a car, under a tree, under a desk, under a dog, the racket of hail on the rushes, on burnt fields, on beaches, hail bouncing off pavement, the packed grass, the back deck, the light through snow, through curtains, through cloud cover, a spider scuttling over snow over skin over water, marks carved in the ice by skates, marks carved in the snow by skis, marks carved in the skin by nails, cumming atop a freshly made bed, cumming alone in the bathtub, cumming from jumping, traces of shit in underwear, in shoe treads, in ass hairs, the lingering smell of shit in spring, in public bathrooms, in the sheets, the smell of starched shirts, the starch-foam of boiled pasta, sea foam, sea spray, sea bloom, sea sickness, a guttering candle, a door slammed shut by the opening of a window, running our tongue over a canker sore, over a lozenge, over another’s tongue, the paths drawn by clams, by toboggans, by tears, the crickets’ first song in August, the curve of the earth seen from a mountain, the blue of distance, the tide, my god, the tide, shadows in grass, in valleys, in doorways, birds alighting and ascending, cranes, gulls, geese, foal, flightless and lifeless birds, on the pavement treaded-through, a single pigeon’s wing, frost on shingles, on grasses, on metal mailboxes, tongues stuck to frost, to popsicles, to one another, headlights reflected in the eyes of deer, of fox, of dogs, of men, the dark purple smell of menstrual blood, a dead squirrel swarmed by flies, our feet pressed down through hot sand to the cool sand below it, the wobble of a catfish in the lake muck, a man’s stubble abrading our neck, percussive, jolting, halting, pulsing sensations, pulverizing, puckered, shucking, shaving, shattering sensations, dull, blunt, battering, bulbous, supple, sanded, sheer, windswept, satined sensations, all sensations, absolutely personal sensations yet to be discovered and named by anyone else. And let us forgive each other for our different routes to the same end. In fact, let us love each other more for them. And if you tell me about what you have discovered along your path, I will listen. And I will tell you what I have discovered along my path, if you will listen. And in the places our paths intersect, let us hold each other for a moment.