Reach

Splayed like legs of a spider,

Faceless yet so alive,

Or squeezed solid fleshy stone

Extracting everything from nothing.

Troubled tense and trembling, like

Weeds in the midwinter wind,

Reaching yearning

To touch something real,

And warm,

And kind.

My hand is a white hotel

Where Elvis sometimes stays.

Yesterday I saw his solemn face

Peering out my middle fingernail.

All Shook Up but so tender,

Crazy but meaning no harm.

Baby baby,

Just let me feel you

With this hunka’ hunka’ burning love.

Because –

I stretch farther than great rivers

To dip fingers in something real.

I tear into the guts of the night

To uncover all my pain,

And you cast dark eyes upon me,

Say this hand is timid and weak

But –

You should see how gentle, like

A cloud caressing the sky.

You should see how deadly, like

A spider on your throat.