The last time we had sex, in the inn after the funeral, a Saturn-ring feeling like this took a loose lap around my mind, nearing my awareness, veering off, nearing again, until it came clear. Two sets of words, pressed against each other like competing palimpsests: Hit me. I love you. I think of your hip bones thudding against my sit bones and feel a snap of lust under my navel. Dr. Weil would say I’m fixated, that central x of the word like a stitch binding me to you. I’m in your thrall, those tall letters on either side of the word imprisoning me.
