~ Her face in his hands ~

She allows happiness to pass through her, longing for expectation, finding
none – living by the occasional nights of safety in the arms of his quiet breathing, in the shadows full of his scent – sawdust, leather, leaf mold, sweat. She wears
camouflage, inviting him
to chase her through the woods of her hair, across her own dark landscape –
his eyes catching loveliness and ugliness, making them the same with
a smile wanting to be seduced, knowing the other’s game and still
mysterious. Always hide
and seek – her questions unanswered, he looks for her
and she is gone. “You wear your emotions
on your sleeve,” he remonstrates, another goodbye, the
ten thousandth ending. Listens, curls deeper, the cat
who follows her, bell jingling, face eager and unattached, she
could be – expressive, giving nothing away –
she wonders what his eyes have made of her, what
the photograph will say happiness looked like: her eyes filled
with his desire for the way her tongue flicks over
her lips, her body aching around his absence.