finger space.

There is more than one “smooth”.

My own fingers, silken-tipped
Slide across the warm ruffling
And over the cool feathered slip
To find hands different from mine,
Blunt, porous, radiating masculinity
And above all, breathing.

Some smoothness has breath.
It has sweat, it has rippling
Quiet musculature and the flickering
Flame-feeling of pulse
And this smoothness is different from sculpture
So different from wood
That my hands know language’s mistake.

My fingers brushing his fingers
Unlike my fingers lacing with my fingers
Or swimming over a child’s palm
I feel the tense pounce of his
The miniscule shaking of crinkled nerves
And what he will not say
My hands know.