4.10.2022

it changed my blood entire

I stayed very still and felt his warm hand 
Stroke my dark shoulder and slip down my back 
And cross the horizon, wiping out lack
Of comfort which had me strapped on its band,
Leaving faint pink prints of the tourniquet's wrap
On these tired arms. I tried and could not stand.
While he—who even knows what his fingers felt—
His careful lips said not a tender word.
It changed my blood entire. Nothing I heard
Could compete with the feeling his touching dealt.
I was drugged by the singing of an unknown bird
Too powerful to stop. I feared I'd melt
And pushed him off before a deeper region stirred.
Too late. Within, it snapped, that tighter belt.
 
[Susan Minot {1956- } 'Sonnet on Being Touched', from Poems 4 A.M.]

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