Touch

The touch of hands; the fall of a thrown fleece;
a stiff and yielding udder; frosty grass
that chills and numbs the fingers; an old pail
brimming with water, tickling fingertips;

the stiffening of harness in the hand;
your soft and billowing shirt; a starchy towel;
touching centres what we live and know:
wordless touch, and the touch of gentled words,

and the abrasiveness of anger, and caress
of sentences that recollect old selves—
and we reach to touch ideas, as if with hands,
shaping them in air, or push them off

as if they're bodied and moving far too close.
Finally we sleep with touch; we share
our breathing and the deepening of thought
where fluid dreams of touch play over us.