My Glasses, My Heart: The Final Part

It is this simple.

He takes the glasses carefully from my hands as if he were well-accustomed to handling fragile things, and slips them into the protective nest of his pocket. The pocket is clean and well-pressed, prepared.

He looks to ascertain my approval. Then his expression changes: Let’s begin.

He enters carefully into the embrace. He moves confidently and with precision. We dance first in the open embrace and, as we become acclimated, he pulls me close.

His arm is strong against my back. Some women feel it is too much, he says. He asks more than once, Is this too much?

It’s nice, I tell him. I don’t say what I feel: Encircled. Secured.

There is nothing in this dance to awaken my dread. No fancy steps he can’t quite lead, nothing I can’t follow.

Well-cared for. Protected.

My forehead rests in the soft hair at his temple. My curls brush his cheek. When the moment is right, I whisper.

Sometimes after a tanda he forgets my glasses are in his pocket. He stands on the edge of the dance floor and chats, and I don’t ask for my glasses because that would be his signal to move on.

Eventually he remembers, or I remind him. Then he removes my glasses from his pocket, opens them, orients them so they will be easy for me to put on, and offers them. He holds onto them until he is sure they are safe in my hands.

If it were not completely stupid, I would be jealous of them, my glasses in his hands, in the pocket next to his heart.

* * *

Who would have thought such a mundane nuisance as glasses could yield such a rich field of possibility for self-expression?

Who would have thought the way to my heart is through my glasses?