“At Sixty-Eight”

“At Sixty-Eight”

The room was quiet, save for the rustle of cotton being undone, the sigh of socks peeled from ankles, and the thrum—my heart stammering like a boy’s, not a man whose hair has gone silver.

He touched my shoulder like he’d done it a thousand times before, but for me it was the first— and the world narrowed to the weight of his hand.

I’d lived in shadows built from pews and shame, married once, faithful to everything but myself.

But here was a man— not young, not trying to be— with crow’s feet, and a belly soft from time, who kissed me like I had not wasted years trying to be someone else’s version of right.

His beard brushed mine. Our chests met, skin to skin. There was no hurry in him, no judgment in how I trembled, only breath and the slow learning of each other.

He touched me everywhere— not just where I feared, but where I’d longed, quietly, under suits and silence: the curve of my back, the side of my knee, the inside of my wrist— worshipped like scripture from a different kind of book.

When I finally opened, truly opened, it wasn’t just flesh that gave way— it was years, decades, church bells and locker rooms, and every no I’d ever said to the yes aching inside me.

And when he moved inside me, it felt like remembering— like something I’d never been taught but somehow knew was always mine.

After, I wept. Not from pain. Not from shame. But from the grace of it— of being known at last, and touched not just as a body, but as a man who had waited long enough.