With the tips of my fingers,
Rubber-sheathed
I touch you.
Describing in you arcs, gently, in silence.
In these moments I know more of you
Than you do of yourself.
Open-palmed, knuckles knocking on your ribs,
Pressed tight to your diaphragm,
Feeling through that pale curtain
The shivers of your heart,
My hand lies upon your liver.
Like turned rosewood, oiled and warm
This firm fullness fills me with a kind of joy
Given to few.
Compressed
My hand glides ahead of me,
Pulling downward, introducing the air
And my breath.
Your liver is
Earthy,
Steamy.
The heart of the ancients.
Now
Your bowels run through my hands.
I stir them in search of your kidneys,
Your spleen.
Carefully.
I ought to be speechless
Yet I ask for my tools.
For this moment your cancer is mine.
Tonight
When I see you I won't know you.
Not like this.
