river song

Standing at the edge of the water you sharply hold your breath as the quiet wave touches your toes and retreats. I watch you fold your arms and shiver. I want to hold you; to peel back your swimsuit as though it was that peel-able skin of a grape Mae West suggestively demanded before popping it into her succulent mouth. The water rolls in again; you stoop and cup it playfully with small prayer hands, pulling it towards you the way a cat spoons the water with the back of its tongue, your eyes closed too. You spring up, laughing and tossing the water into the air, arms outstretched, the Sun exposing all the rainbow colors of your diamond droplets and you ask me to name all the colors I witnessed. I say I don't remember them all, rather I was noticing your swirling ginger hair falling across those pale-blue eyes, your soaked cream-white suit tightening, my steadying hands preparing to peel.

image: River Irwell courtesy R.A.D. Stainforth