Monday, June 1, 2020

Michael T. Smith writes


Chiromancy, a poem on gestures

Saw you across the room,
curlicue -- my hand waves to you,
till you saw me, and vis-à-vis
            your hand to mine you drew.

Across the room, purely
            planetary, our hands in syzygy
swung orbiting
in a gestural prosody.

Until, for a handshake,
            a wreck we make nonplus,
a constant movement of disconnect,
            more cubist than direct --

to com’pone by tittering,
            my fingers shaking from the meet.
I think it was your thumb
            then that winked.

Now, each other enclose,
a Mobius strip of anxious flow,
but not as if the first time,
            rather as if caresses had a memory.

Tremors of a micro kind
            do disclose what we both feel
in a loquacious act,
            but as if inebriated.

Our fingers this conversation makes:
            first one sign,
and then a whole line,
            attempting to speak what we can’t,

Which shyly they do,
            from those somersaults through the air
to us enclosing our hands two:
guess this means I love you.

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