Touch It Every Day

Someone gave it to me as a prompt—and, yes, a joke as well, but I wanted to askwhat it is I’m supposed to touch, like today,for instance, when I saw the blood moonpersimmons hanging as if snatched out of orbitand glued to bare December trees. I admitI wanted to grab one of those radiant globes,so defiantly there, before I remembered, likea rebuke, the mouthy tang they’re famous for,and that chest-high crooked fence someonelong ago staked up between us, though isn’tit always the fragile boundaries that invite—defying our fear of being caught and calleda thief just to satisfy a moment of desire?Or was it a desire for the moment?That’s the difficult part about touching;it’s never a single thing. Eyes go one way,hands another, and the brain keeps trackingthe time when everything veers so coylyout of reach, like those childhood gamesof tag where I was such a slow runner,my fingers barely grazing the lightbefore it slipped away.