Certain moments move me until I must be
everywhere; split myself, nerve particles, into a
fountain (fluffing like a pelican) or up a tree trunk (picking at unhurried bark). Refusing to taste a singular air.
Except atop a
high rise, dangling by a string of your hair—
careful there.
I might collapse. I must confuse my limbs with yours.
Listen to me. You’re all that I trust with my skin.
It stains your hands like
silly putty – palms collecting
newspaper prints – ink in exchange for a lift up the wall.
But the impression is vague, like
fever.
I’m faint to recall. Like rain, like a scent not smelled but somehow heard or seen.
Here’s to that dream on the back of your hand:
My face, small, smudged – but
too fast for love.
It shows up, specific places, I can point them out: plaques of
moonburn.
In all spots, pores of vulnerable me, sites of infection, sites of
osmosis near the collarbone,
clavicle of contagion.
Oh, it would be easy
to battle disease. I already fashion my own
anesthetic. I crouch down to look gravel in the eye. My knuckles are groundproof – would welcome the scar.
It’s not the know, the not-know, the knawing – it’s
the soft things: the bellies, the couches, the mops of wet hair that I fear. I claw to my corner and try to forget.
Your selection of wine. A clear, distant hill. A
drunken confession made in confidential silence.
I ought not to focus on space.
Stars cross me,
holy, but leave only silhouettes.