I WAS LEANED AGAINST A TREE

I was leaned against a tree, embraced in a passionate kiss. I could feel the bark against my back and her skin beneath the silk under my hands and her hot breath and our soft  moans, and everything was so enraptured that I could pay no attention to the clockwork swans that had surrounded us. They began to peck at our legs and bite our ribs and press us hard against the tree, but this was only registered through a tiny side window of our minds, we were on the bow of a ship looking out over the ocean and the cabin boy was down below watching these clockwork swans through the porthole. Eventually there were so many clockwork swans that they formed a kind of mountain beneath us, lifting us right onto the top branches of the tree. The sun baked our hair and the clockwork swans bit our ears and we kissed.