TOUCH

Everything here is yellow and green.
                --Anne Sexton
 

You pull me into your
        delicate sea,
As I shiver at your touch,
Now I'm a valley and you're
        a mountain,
Now I'm dark green and you're
        bright yellow,
You play me like an instrument,
    pulling my strings
        one by one,
As I respond in a symphony
    of poetic madness,
Crying on my pillow, I hug
    the empty space
        between us,
Longing for the night when
    I first touched you.

Love, darling, is a silent mistress,
    who comes streaming through
        my fingers in gentle tears.
We have lost the softness
    and the tenderness of her touch,
Sleeping on a bed of nails,
    we scream in agony of her
            passing.

But I know that deep inside you
    there is a flower growing,
    longing for the moisture
    of a kiss, for the freedom
    of the ocean.
We meet and part in its darkness,
    leaving a trail of tears behind us.

                            May 31, 1987
                         --Alexander Shaumyan