CinnaCrafts

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It's a frigid, cold night on the prairie. The jaundice yellow of the flickering fire cradles the sharp twang of Jimmy’s cheekbones, his face sweet and rosy with evening. The bespeckled shells of sunflower seeds curve with his thumb-pressed dimples.

His cheeks are fat, swollen with laughter, like the pink, soft belly of a lamb. He knocks his hat back, haloed like a saint of boyhood and leather.

The horse jostles behind them, roused by Jimmy’s twinkling bell laughter but Fwhip doesn’t mind, content in watching the way Jimmy’s bandanna rises and fall.

A few hours past, Jimmy sat in front of him, yipping and hollering as they lept and bound across the dusty plains. Fwhip sat behind him, arms wrapped around his waist, they were lost in their adventure and felt so free.

Now they huddle around the crude campfire, they’ve ridden too far to make it back to town. Crooked fingers of shadows flicker past them, curled around their long shadows.

If Fwhip could, he’d lay his head in the lap of Jimmy’s voice. His accent was warm, smooth, like melting butter over a thick slice of toast.

Golden crumbs of cornbread roll down his cheeks. His sunny smile over a sweating cool jar of kombucha, with the quiet buzz of grasshoppers and cicadas.

Fwhip tilts his head, content just to watch Jimmy eat and talk merrily. Quietly, so quiet that even the coyotes couldn’t see them he brushes his thumb over the stray crumbs stuck to the sickly sweet breath of summer drenched on Jimmy’s cheek.

He leans real low and close. The whiskers of his chin brushing Jimmy’s flushed cheeks as he lets the drawl he learned from him take hold.

“There’s nothing I can do but feed you; and I've always loved the way you eat.” Jimmy squirms. Caught in the jaws of a person he didn’t want to escape.

The desert moves with every breath, every branch of his lungs lit aflame like whiskey catching flame.

A kiss; almost.

He’s gone before Jimmy can even feel the heat of his breath on the corner of his lips. It makes him stagger, in the absence of yearning.

The silence settles like heat humming in the summer air. The rings of his fingers, willowy and tangled, shake like trees laughing in the wind. If he could, he’d skin his heart, tight between his knife and thumb, and feed every slice to him.