Untouchable

Are we untouchable?

Our faces were not carved

from stone,

from frost-like daggers

digging their heels

into our pits,

our souls. Our souls are spoken to,

yawning at the turn of the world

and by the world

and by the parents sitting alone

waiting alone.

 

Are we untouchable?

Is there some

impossible thinness

between men?

Transparent pages falling one on top of another,

falling against the world

somehow darkening?

Making men less brilliant?

Making men short-sighted?

Until they are walking in the dark

holding their hearts to themselves,

forgetting

that they are not yet untouchable.

 

Twenty wild Julys streaming

down, running into each other,

the first few of which I do not remember

have not said goodbye to,

or paid back in time.

have not spent by the park bench

where sits my father and mother

who truly sit untouchable.

 

Faithful is the soul that holds the print

of a lean fall bounty,

yielding verisimilarly to snow.

Faithful are the clouds that rarely open,

and open to break the cold.

Soft touch of time, forgive if I forget you

while the infinite pulls me across.

Worser lies dissimulate the feeling,

no later light has lightened up my heaven

no second morning has risen for me.

All this life’s laughter, for my life was given.

All my life’s laughter becomes hyperbole.

Until the mood has shifted,

and all the feelings rush.

The world will turn quite slowly,

and all else will return.

The dust in the air has blotted all the stars out straight.

 

A cold life has blown over

and everything has come to end.

If all the world was ever truly shining,

could a blind man have touched those rays?

Would he remain untouchable,

even as all the world shined through him?