Reena Prasad writes

 Touch

My skin abhors touch 

It forbids it 

The tactile glove to explore a crater raw

The python moved his scales
rearranged them, heat dissipating through their mesh
I wasn’t cold though, my blood bounded against his
scales and skin leaping
his tail spooning my waist as he left 
his weight invisibly tattooed on my scapula
Touch me there, you can feel a snake grow

The faintest of butterfly feet on my fingers
with none of the former’s assuredness
Tremulous, a tender quiver of questions
and I am silenced, turned inside out, raw

Explore, suck, kiss, lick, flick
How many feet does a butterfly need
to string me along?
With the last it kicked away my fantasies

reducing me to a prayer

 
A connect from some other realm
at a time when the disconnect was complete
yet my skin refused to let its memory fade
of the leech that wouldn’t let go
of the wolf that wouldn’t go slow
of the man whose nip still throbs

Touch me not
not unless you want to go  
and leave me another skin