The awful overhead fluorescents, somehow casting just right, as to catch your cheek bone and brow. 

The solemn stare of utter focus, pronounces your upper lip. 

So it hangs— like a petal dampened by rain— over your bottom lip.

Gently you trace your chin.

Pulling the skin tight, exposing your throat, 

As if submitting to someone’s grip.

I count the moles.

Your skin, like a line of prose I never tire of reading.

I wish I could share in this ritual.

That my jaw, also, got coarse and prickled. 

So I too could choose, to be rough or soft. 

Somehow you are both— your breath low and deep, under the high pitch of the razor. 

So undisputedly masculine, even alone, and unclothed, even under my watchful gaze. 

And I wonder what it’s like. 

To be beautiful in this way.