We are in the moment before we decide, for the first time, to have sex.

We fill our mouths with salami and wine. I am careful, peeling wax paper off glazed sponge cake

baked by nuns who live down the street. One nun, this morning, took my hand in hers

while she told me that the most important ingredient is the silence of prayer.

I cannot tell you this, but I held onto her while she walked me through a village

made of thick paper. A train with a real light and human figurines hot-glued to look

like they were heading somewhere. I was terrified. I didn’t touch a man for seven years.

Asleep. Your eyelashes open against my chest. You are the first person to not know this.