One of them was holding the moon gentle palmed finger curled. The other knew; had studied; had repeated love a time and a time again, just to check the list so fine. This was science, she said into his tongue.

They walked quietly, the sound of rings, the sound of falling cautions traced the path out before them, through the apartment, into the recipe of their bed.  “Remember when,” she asks, “we were driving through those middle places and I told you that your hand on my thigh was cocoon to me?”

He nods, she takes him in her mouth. He hears wings flapping as the seasons change.

She asks, “Have you read the Silmarillion?” Her eyes are desperate to know, her mouth returns to him.

His moan strikes the ceiling, a handful of tended want. She is done. They stand on the top of chairs, magnifying glass in hand, and stare at the trails his breath left over the texture and heating vents. She smiles when she examines the print, “You have read it.”

Much later, when their individual laughter and touch is no longer a foreign country, but a home, they stood out in a grove of cedars. He is digging a hole, she is watching, there is a pile of shovels. She holds her clipboard and takes notes, counting and recounting the half dozen shovels and the trail of sweat on his back.

“So, if we plant six, how long do you think it will be until the holes have grown?”

“I’m not sure. Do we have to water them?”

“Only with our bodies.”

He nods. They once had a garden that they never watered or tended to, but every morning and evening they would churn in each other, nude and against the soil, just to see what would grow.

He looks over at her now, researching what they have decided is true. He remembers the airport, that first moment, how she crossed oceans to cross his country, and his heart. Just to see what would grow.

And now they hold this moon, and a truth is there; spring, in the center of their palms, but only when they are touching. The sky was a hypothesis, and back to chest is a laboratory.  “Is this what clouds love like? How close are you to raining?”