--THANK YOU FOR THAT

                                            Stretch Your Legs

When I cut and paste you, I do it wrong, miss your legs, leaving them on the page where they cross and kick and finally find stasis. 

After work, we go for walks.  Stretch your legs, I say to your lower half.  Heel, toe, I say, stretch your legs. 

Sure, people stare.  We’re a voyeur nation after all.  But it’s hard to indict a pair of legs that know what they’re doing, that are walking on their own volition.

Weekends we slump down on the couch that faintly smells of your apple blossom shampoo.  We watch reruns of Forensic Files until your ankles slouch, revealing how tired they are. 

If they allow it, I file and paint your toe nails.  I shave your legs when they become downy.  I apply a light film of lotion and give them a luxurious massage.

Sometimes I carry them to bed, careful about the pressure or where I rest my chin. 

         Under the yawning moon’s breath or a nightlight, I sometimes search the right knee for that old skating scar, the one I used to trace when your legs were attached.

I get down on my knees right next to your knees.  At first, I hum that George Michael song we first danced to all those years ago, but then I always end up whispering the same thing, asking for forgiveness, wishing I’d never made you take that jump with me over the falls where the water sat colder and harder than I thought it was, harder than it should have been.