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.