The first morning we woke up together, in a borrowed room strewn with discarded clothes, you said, we fit, your body fits mine. These days we lie down while it is still light, our clothes in a neat pile on the blanket box at the foot of our bed. You like to leave the curtains open, letting the night settle around us. Shadows from the macrocarpas reach across our lawn, and the sky bleaches as the sun sinks before it spills, for a few startling minutes, like sangria through the branches. And we form two crescent moons, the curve of your back against my bare skin. I nuzzle into your neck, inhaling the sweet tang of sweat and sunblock that clings to you all summer. Moments later you kick back the covers, shifting a few inches away. Boiling like a frog. We lie silently on the edge of sleep, our fingertips barely touching. The stillness is broken by the whir of wings beating a thousand times a second. We wait, breath held, for the silence that will follow its landing. Too late I slap it dead against bare skin, a lump already rising on my thigh. I start to scratch. Wait. You snap a spear from the succulent on our windowsill, pull the fleshy leaf apart, and press cool droplets against the welt. Your fingers paint widening circles, kneading my skin. I roll over and am still surprised by the silk of you when my lips find yours.

Emma is an M.A. (creative writing – fiction) student at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ). Her writing and photography work has been published in NZ online and print journals Headland, Café Reader and Fresh Ink, and in The Cortland Review (USA)