Losing my edge

The last time we kissed was during the year of being cold, when we were both so thin  everything inside us was sharp and painful.  It was we two against all.  Our eyes were huge in our faces and dissected the world and found it wanting.  

It is two decades since university, since that icy certainty.  Now everyone says I am warm, homely.  You didn’t recognise me.

I try to ask you ‘does the way we were embarrass you now?’; but somehow we are kissing.  Touching your back I expect slick ribs but do not find them.  Your breasts are unfamiliar between us.

“I didn’t mean this,” I say as you lead me up the stairs; but I know I am lying.  I want you, want the past so much it cuts.

Back then, stretched between clubs and squats, the tiniest passion would burn us up like matches, flushing our cheeks and making our hands twitch.  We were scalpels then.  Sarcasm, sex. intellect, purity, disdain; to these my husband hid the keys, trapping me in comfort.  

“When I look at my daughter, I see us as we were then,” I whisper to you.

“Shhh,” you say and I shiver.