So I have I think three more poems to share with you all.
And then I will flee.
Again, let me explain again.
Sometimes it's just a spider crawling up
my leg and not a hand or the thin edge
of a flame that wakes me.
Or sometimes it's my mother, on the other side of the city
talking loudly on the phone.
I think my boy is sick, and I want to be better at lying,
or at least for heaven's sake, feel a blade of hair
graze my arm without the world around me turning
into an empty classroom, an endless row of desks,
a woman swaying at the end, her face pressed
against the chalkboard.
But let me start the story over.
For someone once told me that touch is too soft
a word to describe what happened to me, and maybe they're right.
So maybe it started earlier.
The woman spending her whole life
without hands, an egg at the end of each wrist,
so let's say that's true.
Let's say the egg hatched and found the closest thing
to call home, and here I am today, years later,
the host of touch.
A boy who lets the spider crawl on to his face
before smacking it dead.