Stranger Touch
Strange.
Yet uncertain, this stranger touch,
This life
A new emotion, maybe love
like a rhythm,
like water spilling over a damn
in four dimensions of thunder
Old friend's face coming up
from the depths of mind
unbidden
uncalled for
Against the countenance of a lover--
(though lover in spirit and never, never
body)
He likes to touch that face, its angular strong jaw
that might be "lantern" if such a thing were,
in real life,
possible.
Likes to stroke a daffodil-soft cheek sprinkled with pussywillow
peachfuzz,
loves to breath his warm smell, reminder of small safeties
He's never been certain of love
of what it is or why
but to touch is to feel the current of a suddenly tongued 9-volt
cusstle up against his eyeballs
raise the hair on his neck
so maybe it's more than lust or
loneliness or
loss
and maybe it's another "l" word a secret word,
a word he won't dare use
lest he risk his one and only truth
You are my second, says one to the other
my bravest
my strongest
you are lo---