Lesson in love

I learned to tuck you in
Under my eyelids
Breathe you in stealthily
With the air I inhale
I feel you on me
In the velvet darkness of the night
I taste your sweat
At the corners of my lips
I hear you breathe in silence
And try to breathe in tandem
Was I the expectant father
Trying to create new Universes
With you?
I sleep
Only to practise being dead
For then you will come to me
And declare me yours
The way I did long long long
ago.
— Lakshmi Bayi