Annette Allen
Sense
The body seeks touch,
silky rub of sheet,
like water slips along
the shoreline of the moon
caresses the windowpane.
Its light dissolves space
between, brings everything closer,
urges us to begin again
to lift the palm over the hushed
skin, a motion of cells
and self, finding the way
across the bridge
of this closed castle.
Layers of earlier rhythms
rest in the flesh of an arm’s
turn, tilt of spine,
infused with birdsong,
and how sunlight once felt.
Like a cat licking its young,
each gesture carries succor,
a taste of the carnal.
It shakes you awake, this
uncanny language of flesh,
opens the gate beyond
bruise and wound, weds
us to the fleeting world.
