In the morning,
while she is buried under the comforter,
He reads her the classified ads.
His voice, gravelly and dark,
makes it sound like poetry.
In the afternoon,
as she is trying to shop for shoes,
he sits nearby trying,
very poorly,
not to stare at the clerk's stilettos
At night,
using dim light from an exhausted candle,
he traces her body.
His are slow movements
similar to brushstrokes,
with hands speaking a foreign language.
A hundred words,
all of them verbs.