I stroke your skin like a leaf
and hold it up to the light,
allowing fingertips

           to go slow from root to tip.
           to sew the lining where two unlike materials meet.
           to code this friction into tactile intuition...

And yet--

                                                      I am afraid.

With this and all acts of temptress divination.

                                                I, I...am afraid.

I want to read our intersection.

I want
            to see               in your life-line.
                        myself.


First, I will find the highways of your pulse-

watch as they
                           give way to country roads.

Dissecting life-ways into bi-ways

where I can go slow from

root                         to                             tip.

                                rise
Feel the land
                                                       and fall.

from grass
to hallowed knoll-

Throw me dirt and blow out your windows.
                           
Take me slow
                                        down the side roads.

Next, I consult
the creases of your open fist.

Gone are the fine blue lines
                                                         -the tomographic
Heat, and its rhizomatic
                                              beat.

Instead, you hold me in this underpass

[the clamminess and opposite-land of passion and speed]
                                          where
                             [shadows cling and relationships keep].

You hold my hand.

To leave, and blast!
                                                 - to stay, I will need a map.

Hide me here long enough to find beauty
in the fine etched lines
that paint the walls in broad swoops of graffiti:
those cryptic tag-lines that advertise your witty, poetic celebrity.

from finger to wrist

                   arc
             the      to the thumb

the pulse that could run
on and on.

[our] distant reflection
                            -a mirage in the rising sun.
where

the earth line cuts off the air line

to fuse the heart-              and the head
                                                             ­                   -line.