Sleeping Giant

Sleeping Giant

by Eileen

She climbs the trunk with the tips of her fingers, finding footholds where his vertebrae meet the yielding oak of his spine. A broken nail's edge traces each branch, crooked and threadbare, before it alights somewhere in his canopy and she presses a kiss to the fist-knot where his shoulders meet.

When he shifts, the earth moves. His breath is the wind passing through the memory of leaves. A voice creaks in the dark and she wraps arms around him, rests a cheek against his roughness.

Sap tastes like salt. One breath fills her with the loamy smell of him.