Still, David Romtvedt

Still by David Romtvedt The children are sleeping and the cows and chickens are sleeping, and the grass itself is sleeping. The machines are off and the neighbor’s lights, a half mile away, are out, and the moon is hanging like a powdered face in a darkened room, and the snow is shining under stars the way we are shining here in our cold skins under warm quilts. We pull our shirts over our heads and toss them to the floor and the only thing grotesque is the space through which we stumble each night. I roll to you and put my hand on your skin. You shiver and smile, “Cold. But not too cold. Some cold I like.” And draw my hand closer. I pull it away and jam it in my armpit, and while I wait for the blood I look at you, admire your face, your neck and breasts, your belly and thighs, the shadowy double of you thrown by candlelight to the wall- There is no season, no grass gone brown, no cold, and no one to say we are anything but beautiful, swimming together across the wide channel of night.