Chapter 63

Flesh

Holds life on life on life,

Bursting from your breath,

Burning in your chest

Like the stone in that pond,

Each nerve rippling with fire

To the end of you,

Begging you to continue forever.

Claire closed her eyes as she listened. Her body hummed, tingles crawling over her arms, over her scalp, and down the back of her neck. She didn't know if it was the poem, the words themselves, or the sound of Laura's voice, soft and delicate for the first time in weeks, close and vulnerable like a lover's prayer.