Ecumenical

Take my hand and smell my hair, then bury your head in my chest and laugh as you burrow and hum, “You need a shower.”

The afternoon passes, as it always does, and I am here with you.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing. I am a vase.”

“Copying me,” she said, guiding my hand to the top of her head. “Just a while longer. Then it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“Dinner!” She showed me the time on her watch, worn with the small face framed by the pale inside of thin wrists. “Don’t tell me you aren’t hungry.”

In truth, it had escaped me that there was ever hunger.