Monday, August 7, 2017

OF HANDS and TOUCH

OF HANDS and TOUCH

I have always wondered
Where was it that my hands
learned to crave and to remember
a touch, that they so long for.
Where is its memory stored
and how does it signal a tremor in
my consciousness.

While you remained away, my hands
have aged to a fluffy rough
with marks and mounds not known to
days of togetherness.
Its in the waiting of many decades that
they have learned to slide and glide against each other
in the symphonies of anxiety and
the serenity of the yog mudras
while with you, in youth they
had freely danced
for months and weeks and years.

Together we invented the language
of the dumb, the imbeciles and the juveniles
as palms on palms listlessly fly
and as the indexes entwine
to a firm grip,
leaving the others free to
imitate an embrace
or stay closely huddled
till the beating of the pulse is felt.
Palms laze on palms
as parachutes collapse to the ground
while the silks of your wrist glide
and surf the
tactile of the wavy hair of forearm.


Listless memories of my unsteady hands
learning a grip and then a feel,
trying to remember and distinguish a
caresses from an abominable touch.
The language of the hands is learned
with patting on the back, leanings on shoulder
and the nipping on cheek
in the morsels, in the huddles and in the embrace.
While the body and soul resonate
its the hands that communicate.


From a montage of touches
my stimuli has learned to discern,
but I have always wondered
Is it that the ridges

of our hands meet and collide
to a tight fit
or cause an electrostatic charge
from friction
or is it Love that flows through the
finger tips
when it has no other measures
to express and explore.


Hands know the language
of hands
there are seeds that reach the soul
with a caress and
a touch has memory
only that, it does not evolve
because the body intervenes
too soon, and steals the play
making them only objects of
grips and holds
objects that lie tied as cuffs
or strangle or tie
while the pleasures born are
stolen into the torso.


I have always wondered
What is it in the epidermis that
gets transmitted
through the cusps and the mounds
into the soul plates of nerves
that remain entangled in my hands
causing a flow and a longing
in all Contact.
There is something that hands do
in the idle hours of listless days
till labour, hunger or desire
spade the laze and frutify action.
They have learned the
hops of the index, the
slides of the moist palms
the knuckle knocks
the high-fives
the thumb cajoles
the mound to mound collides
and the thumb sting play
games only hands know
how to play for a better TOUCH.

~ A.