The Arching of Her Back

You kneel, body held erect

Like the Catholic schoolgirl you used to be.

My eyes are drawn, as always, to the hollow of your throat.

If I should lay my fingertip against it

There’d be the fluttering pulsebeat

Of the wings of a nightingale, in its gilded cage.

You have grown thin, and your fragile collarbone

Stretches through your silken skin,

Seeming like it would snap

At the touch of my hand.

I step forward, brushing your chestnut hair away.

It falls behind you, baring a gentle fullness of breast,

Small enough to fit in a cupped hand…

Taut with anticipations.

I lean, and press a kiss on one hardened nipple.

You arch, soundlessly as I taught you,

And I drink in the elegant curve of your torso,

with your slender arms stretched back,

clasping your ankles firmly.

I start rubbing the other nipple with my right hand,

While I increase the pressure of my kiss,

Harder

and harder…

Until finally you break, as always, and the tiniest of moans escapes.

I stop.

Reach out and caress the supple whip.

Regretfully, joyfully, anticipating the new lines of fire

That I will add to the thin, white, beautiful scars

Crossing your eager body.

*****

M.A. Mohanraj

8/23/92