The sound of your breath
on the outskirts of a dream
flies high above me/

thick with hours of
night, rest and love, in the dark
your lips find mine. The

hour is before
dawn, before the first stretch/ first
yawn of good morning/

the warmth of you wraps
around me, my soul sings your
glory/ you light the

night with love/ peeling
away the grit of the day/
our renewal/

a web, carefully spun,
each and every morning
like this one, we still

don’t need words/just legs
around waist, breasts against back
we beg the sun for

a few moments more/
our love is simple and
divine, you are my

air/ my breath/ my soul
my everything/ you are the
reason my heart sings.


(C) 2013 Crystal Senter-Brown

I should've listened to my mother. She spotted Ethan's dark heart long before I ever did. Every time they were in the same room, she would purposely move to the opposite side, to get as far away from him as she possibly could.

So of course when I showed her my engagement ring, she didn't smile. She didn't even acknowledge it, actually. There I stood, with my freshly manicured fingertips outstretched, waiting for her to ooh and ahh. But she didn't. Instead, she turned to the sink and continued to wash the dinner dishes.

On the morning of my wedding day, I realized I hadn't heard from Ethan in over 24 hours. I didn't worry about it at first, until the jeweler called and asked who would be coming to pick up my re-sized engagement ring. (I had lost almost twenty pounds unintentionally, so my ring kept sliding off.)

"My fiance should have picked it up yesterday," I whispered. I didn't want my mother to know what was going on.

"Mr. Horter?" the jeweler said. "I just spoke to him he said he would be away for at least another two weeks. I actually thought the two of you decided to elope."

But how could Ethan be away when our wedding was scheduled to begin in less than three hours?

(to be continued)