The power of touch: Once, in November – a poem by Anis Mojgani

‘Your hand to my face / thumb upon my cheek / palm cupping my jaw / touching my skin like a silk to dress yourself in’Welcome to the Guardian’s Power of Touch seriesYou get into the shower and ask Will you keep me company?I sit on the toilet’s lidand while you wash yourself and water at the same time the ferns the spider plantthe pothos vining over the tilemarvelling out loud how you love to water them while showeringI read to you from a book I once owned only just this morn having bought againbecause I didn’t want to write any poems todaybut I did today want to read them to let what light touches what grasses that in me run wildto let that light happen by reading to another poems that once led me to the ways my heart might bigger itselfpoems of the sea and the earth and the calling that comes from all that wells and springs from love and loveso I read the wells to yousay aloud the springswith you on the other side of the shower curtain – your body behind it looking like a pastel from Degas with the window’s light holding your shoulders and I trembling the Chilean’s words into the airread and read aloud and out loud you pull the veil aside and with the drops of water on your mouth you leaning past the vines scrolling over the wall out the shower to touchyour hand to my facethumb upon my cheekpalm cupping my jaw touching my skin like a silk to dress yourself inlifting my chin and lowering yoursdown to me kissing your wet lips to mine leaving my heart breathing behind its own jungle of wet leavessoftest tongue to my teeththe water of you on my mouth Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/17/the-power-of-touch-once-in-november-a-poem-by-anis-mojgani #poetry #books #life_and_style #culture