"Did you sleep well?” he asks, and I’m
flooded with warm waves of kindness.
Kindness that caresses, opens, cares.
Kindness as foreplay for morning coffee,
as breath shaping love into questions.
It's alarm-clock eros, and it tingles below,
as if cracking a cocoon in the hollow of the
belly, then pausing for the sound of wings.
This is creaturely kindness.
It opens the heart like an animal yawn,
brings warmth to the cheeks like a blushing dawn,
warms toes like favorite socks.
It could be the weather, or aging, or love —
but this body electric these days
hums most sweetly on the sheer, simple eros
of kindness.