And we lay, sticky hands and sweaty shoulders

hair tangled by fingers without goals

jumping at the slightest whisper of a stair creak

breaking a kiss at the first inclination.

Slurring words we understand without voicing

(you think I’m beautiful

and I want to hear it again).

Tapering fingers plink out octaves on the piano

hands you want stroking pale thighs and sighing

and there’re noises we think only we can hear,

a musty clarity and a single note

Breathing, thick and hot

until a newspaper, ten feet and a world away, shuffles

our half-silence shattered by a well-placed cough.

Reminding us we’re old enough to want it but that we’re

too young

to understand.