the first in a series of meditative poems about skin

rubbing

while the gray wind swept by your sandy hair,
on the boardwalk, a man with a shabby cap
shaded you into my life.

it's incredible how life moves by in gradations
shades
are the darker bits of your face older? wiser?
your eyes searched me out from the surface of the page
and i don't remember if i liked your nose better
or if it was rounder or sharper
if your nostrils were wide or also sharp.

on the beach, the sea rubs away at the coast.
the memory of you becomes less distinct
but pervades

i was in the process of walking by,
it was a process finely tuned to process through,
when the hairs on the backs of my arms noticed
how the ley lines of the air, they bunched and jostled,
breathed in by you.
the man with the shabby hat smudged
your face into being.

when i reached out my finger and brushed your cheek,
it returned to my eye similarly smudged.
i left our fingerprint on every surface i could find.

1/4/08

(x/p to the phlog)