He cups the hollows of his hands—all those small empty spaces between bone and filament, blood, the tangled wired of nerves, and the packed density of skin—around the shape of his wife's face, mapping out its hills and valleys. He counts her ribcage, each bone an individually wrapped parcel for him to open. He kisses small tiny whispers onto her fingers. He catches the smoke green glint of her eyes as she smiles at him, somewhere between half-awake and asleep.

They lie beside one another, their hearts drumming two-by-two, a plurality of four voices. Her breath rattles the edges of his face as he leans in to kiss her.

As the room lightens imperceptibly, by degrees, into day, she slips further into the shadow of sleep. Her head slips from the pillow; with a sigh she finds the crook of his shoulder, nestles there. Her breathing evens out, flattens and deepens, her limbs taking on that silver looseness of sleep.

He watches her, lying half on his side, half on his back, memorizing what of her he can see, given the angle: the curls of her hair, the bare curve of her shoulder falling smooth down her arm, which rests heavy over the creases in the sheets.

And he cries, silently, burying his face into her hair, breathing in her scent, because she's his wife, and he loves her.

As dawn steals in through the windowsill, the towers stop singing.