reach and touch

Each finger folds inwards, hands full of feelings, every sense a small fire. Both fists balled tight, keeping these settled secrets. Holding these certain truths. The palms feel a flicker of perspiration, the waxy scratchings of skin against skin writing riddles, a message shipped from another form. Hands held out and open, hands clasped against a profusion of prayer, the whole of the world the flitting of fingertips. The whole of the world only reach and touch.

I pour another cup of coffee, gather the cup in both hands, breathe out an offering to the skin of black and steam. I blow and I sip and I set the coffee down. Some days the routine is all in the ritual. Some days the habit is all you have. Steel and heat, light and ink. All of my reasons unfurl, caught in the drift of gain and loss. All these angels placed alight in the gist of catch and release. I hold this portion while the rest flows away.

It is an island where rivers of time go slipping by. It is the selection of the one thing that will not be ignored. The pieces picked, the chosen fields of weeds and debris, rust and rot held close to the staggering of the heart. The flesh unfolds in directed appetites, it finds music in the wastes of want. The fists fail their craft, always beginning to open yet again. Fingers stretch and fan, making much of every little thing.