Morning vine

Her smaller body somehow encompasses mine
like a morning vine slowly overtaking the ruins of my late night
and she whispers into my still sleeping ear
reflections that I dimly recognize to be whimsies from yesterday evening’s walk:
    “You are my firefly. Your butt is always lit to me.”
I smile, eyes still closed,
and shake my butt in response,
as if to make it lit for her again,
and get a reward for my feat of cognition
in the form of a petting
that arrives like morning waves gently lapping on a windless dawn.
The waves of caress tuck me in,
keeping in the warmth of my mind as much as of my body,
and part with a prolonged touch of my toes
as I shiver and fall back to sleep,
in the comfort of knowing that the world itself will wait for me
while I rest in this impregnable nook of safety.

Melih Sener