I want to kiss the back of your leg. Just that. Just there. Soon enough the cooler weather’s going to come – you can see the sun is setting earlier now – and your legs will be covered up again until the warm days come back in the Spring. Who knows if I’ll still be around when that happens?
I know you don’t want me kissing the back of your leg. It would be embarrassing for you – a grown man leaning or crouching or kneeling down to get his lips at a good angle for that soft flesh between the back of your knee and your ankle. Why are you shivering? It must be that the cold, dark days are coming fast.
We could hold each other in those colder days. We could share whatever warmth either of us could afford. We could pool our resources. It might not be long until the only resources I’ll have left to pool are some heat and whatever sweetness exists in the bottom of the barrel.
I’m dizzy with it: the heat and the cold and the scraping of the barrel. I smell the smoky spot where each stave was cleaved from their mother tree. I see the things time and death has done to each of them. Every creak and crack and ring in the wood has its own story to tell.
And I’m overcome by the soft spot where the elasticity of youth is surrendering to the ease of age. I want to kiss the back of your leg.
Words & Music by Mike Power 