Don’t stop, she says,
and grabs my hand
and pulls it again
to her back. She
rakes it across
her skin and urges the nails
deeper in to scratch
some invisible itch
that she can’t reach herself.
In the thin light of vespers,
her face is more shadow
than shape. Still,
as my hand grazes
her skin, I make out
the place where her brow begins,
the jut of her nose, her angle of chin,
and she is no longer
nine years old, but some
timeless version of herself—
maybe thirty, or sixty,
or eighty-four, some year
when I am no longer
near to scratch
the unreachable spot.
The thought of it
makes me linger longer
than I normally do—
until her breathing changes,
until she is nine again,
her body curling
into her blanket,
her hand opening
into sleep.
.