Moonlight Moment

She is my wife of forty years, breathing softly, lying behind me, spooned close, on a night draped in moonlight. My arm reaches for her, drawn to her heat, and inserts itself into narrow space between us. My hand and fingers rest there at the portal to her, touching so tenderly that there is more electricity than contact. She is as new as birth to me, and I wait for movement, a shift of weight that opens her, a squeeze that says "I know you are there. Yes." before I advance. Moments pass like hours. I wait. The moon rises higher, shining on us. I walk a razor's edge of attention, all focused at that tiny point of contact, my blood pounding in my temples so loud I wonder if she can hear it. She is flesh made of light, and I feel I could pass a hand right through her as the faintest of squeezes, a slight pump of tissue offers an invitation to share her secret. I am slow, gentle, moving at glacier speed, but on fire. My touch sees the architecture of her, sacred folds and mounds and silken planes. She is weightless and made of sparkling photons. I touch the mystery driving fusion, super novae, life force. She rises and crests and writhes again and again as waves of energy pass through us both. She is more soul than flesh, and something like eternity wraps us in its blanket. She is not one for irony and says that she now understands the Big Bang and how it is baked into the design of desire and living things. Silence informs my touch moving over her as moonlight rains down in a moment of grace, of earthy pleasure, a delight that passes into memory as the moon winks and nods and slides toward the horizon. Too soon only a memory,