In the glow of my laptop, he is silhouetted. His bare back faces me, the quilt slung low across his hips, signaling he’s warm on this particular night. As I reach my fingers toward his warm, bald head, I am greeted by a week’s worth of peach fuzz that’s come in since I last trimmed it for him. It prickles at my fingertips as I swirl my way around his head, then make my way down his neck to his back, a softer, yet altogether different feeling skin, more leathery from the rashes that plagued him before the chemo began, but have long since gone. Only the toughened skin remains as a reminder for my fingers to trace along his spine. In this filtered light, I imagine his body made of leather, porcelain, soft clay, copper, marble. I imagine a mixed-medium sculpture of textures & temperatures forming the parts that blend into the whole man I love. I whisper into his warm, coppered ear, “I love you.” His snores are so small, they barely rise to his shoulders. I let my love drape over his back a few minutes more, let it hang until it slides comfortably off into its own puddle alongside his form. We forever remain 2 made better as 2.
