Timothy Sandefur

Aubade

I kiss you every morning, even though
you’re far away; even though your bed’s
a thousand miles out of reach. I know
it’s fantasy — only in my head —
I know I cannot slide my fingertips
across the smooth skin of your shoulders, your arms —
or along the sleek sloping of your hips —
or fall into oblivion in the warm
raven tangle of your hair — and that
it’s just poetic silliness to think
that you can feel my chest against your back,
or the brush of flesh when my body instinct-
ively reacts —
               and yet somehow I feel
the distance, not the touch, is what’s unreal.

Timothy Sandefur is an attorney practicing law in Phoenix, and also the author of several books including biographies of Frederick Douglass and Jacob Bronowski, and a book of poems called Some Notes on the Silence.