What Next

I curl into the darkness
listening for the sound past your voice.

My face and the pillowcase in a
gravitational relationship,
phone balanced on my head where
I can pretend it isn't.
Suspending reality so
if I reach out next to me,
I'll find warmth.
And you.

Watching the night loiter
between us and the ceiling.
Even your silences have a way with words.

I hear the touch of our slow dancing fingers
on this midnight road trip of no
certain destination,
each in the double role of driver and passenger,
neither likely to be the first to ask,
Are we there, yet?
We are off the map.

This night different from all other nights,
a glimpse of a well-lit thoroughfare, and
I am overwhelmingly aware I'd so rather be going
anywhere
with you
than know.

Those words don't come with sound.

Instead, I imagine our fingers stilled, intertwined,
and just breathe
until

It's good to hear you catches me with
an unfamiliar drumming.

My pause before Goodnight is a prayer of gratitude.
It is good. All of it.

I turn my hand in yours and we drift
in cheshire darkness.