Hunkering, and: The tao of touch, and: Let me never count the ways

Hunkering

The sky is that pale winter blue,depthless while the snow is purerblue in the honey colored sun atthree that lays no warmth on the skin.

Ice began on the edge of the pondlike flimsy lace, then thickened.Every night it crept fartherout till it closed the gap.

Gulls sit on the ice facingall the same direction, audiencefor some invisible play.In winter it must be a tragedy

with a high death countlike the end of Hamlet. Oncein Montana I saw a dead horsefrozen against a fence, upright.

At night even the house feelsmortal, creaking, complainingevery joint rubbing sourlytogether as the wind sidles

in through frosted windows.I feel stripped like the treesto the bare structure of my life.Outside the world belongs to ice.

Inside we keep warm rubbing ideasand books and bodies together.

The tao of touch

What magic does touch createthat we crave it so. That babiesdo not thrive without it. Thatthe nurse who cuts tough nailsand sands calluses on the elderlytells me sometimes men weepas she rubs lotion on their feet.

Yet the touch of a strangerthe bumping or predatory thrustin the subway is like a slap.We long for the familiar, the openpalm of love, its tender fingers.It is our hands that tamed catsinto pets, not our food.

The old woman looks in the mirrorthinking, no one will ever touchme again, never. Not hold me.Nor caress the softness of mybreasts, my inner thighs, the swellof my belly. Do I still liveif no one knows my body?

We touch each other so manyways, in curiosity, in anger,to command attention, to soothe,to quiet, to rouse, to cure.Touch is our first languageand often, our last as the breathebbs and a hand closes our eyes.

Let me never count the ways

There are so many ways of making love:there is paying the bills on timeevery bloody month so we don't oweinterest. There is interest racheted upfor the fourth draft, for the twentieth tellingof a story. There is the tale never toldbecause it would embarrass.

There is the coffee brewed at sixwhen your hands are still huge with sleep.There is the rosemary chicken sautéedwhen I am way too tired to stand.There is the walk shoveled all the waydown to the road. There is the laundrydone every Monday every week everyyear. There is the football gamerecorded. The phone call blocked.

There is the tenderness that lastsuntil the trees turn to leaf mold.There is the care that surroundsand laves the sore back and wearyshoulders but let's go for freedom'ssake. There is the love that standsguard and the love that keeps quiet.

Yes, we make love in bed and onthe couch, but we also make loveout of toast and nails and vacuumcleaners, out of needles and thread,out of ink and kitty litter, out of hoursand days given not because we mustbut because we still want to.