1p36.11 (What touches distances)

Asleep this afternoon. Between cool sheets,
my warmer shadow. Against its solid edges
muscle coils and extends in secret,

veins meander, gathering blue
and serpentine descend, continue inward to
the crescent center of my need.

Press your finger into me and I will bloom.
A bruise is a rose grown toward the sense
of elsewhere shining past my ends.

Yet I depend on these boundaries, coherence
of a form imbued with essence and defined:
the line about each thing marking its presence.

UP CLOSE THE SKIN IS FRAUGHT WITH PASSAGES. OUR CHILDREN WRESTLED THROUGH ME & REMAIN & I INVITE YOU LAMPLIT, SILVERY AGAIN TO COME: PRESS YOUR CHEEK AGAINST THE GROUND: THE LEVEL WALL OF EARTH ANOTHER SKIN WE ENTER

What will be left of ‘us’, divided up into
those mulching stars apart? What un-hand tends
the loom of mute facts, ever generating?

I need it to be human, to remember
us, because even more than to control
I want to be known. Within these hollows,

through sensual labyrinths we speed
inattentive, which is deathward, pursued
between the level bleak where feeling blends.

Limits focus. What few touches I’ve devoted
let me attend entire, kissing
together our divided smiles, let me continue

breathing incense from our childrens’ hair, preserve
the space through which I reach toward embrace.
Without this distance, where else would I honor?

IS THAT WHY YOU STILL TRY TO KEEP YOURSELF IN DIAMOND DISTANCE, ABLE TO REFLECT BUT NOT TO BURN?

ONLY ACROSS THE FEVER-BORDERED FLESH
WE LONG, REACH, SAMPLE, MIX & MAKE, BECOME.
YOU’RE NOT ENOUGH.

My fingers end where yours begin: a loop
that spans our whole divided life. Whatever drew
your arms to vine my shoulders, brought me to

be this broken, punctuated man: with all the elements,
and growling wind, and lizards flickering through
its walls. With holes where lights & rain spill in.

If we’ll select our remade bodies then,
wherever this biology extends,
I want to share with you: enlarge

this single cell to be all entrance,
greeting you
ever again, again

coming to and going
TOUCHING OUR SKIN, delighted
TO FIND you in.