Dying Into Love

Our nakedness was a deliberate decision
and I knelt happily before you, shameless and unafraid.
 
What could I offer other than my own self-possession?
This body which I'd held so carefully since birth  
was no longer mine.
 
In love, we chose an incremental and pleasurable death,
momentarily dispossessed of ourselves as  
all that we treasured was shared in death.
 
Why did your fingers tremble over my scalp
as they traced my forehead?
Were you reading my thoughts, or
afraid of the child I once was?  
 
The salty taste of your offering brought memories of the ocean
where my mother said I was conceived.
 
That night, kneeling as if in prayer, the quiet dying to myself
swallowed easily and I smiled at the approving hums from your chest.