Hands don’t touch you.
Not arms, not elbows.
Something else leans over
while you lie face down
in painted sheets.
A presence you must trust
or else shrink in shame. Because
your body is alone like a branch
that has fallen from a high tree
into the river. It is now at the mercy of
the flowing of waters, laid bare before the elements,
where the sun and the moon prevail,
two eyes regarding all that passes.
You are blindfolded,
rolling beneath the gaze,
your skin touched to the bone—
it is easy to become hollow,
to turn,
by moments,
more invisible.
But you must not, shall not.
Masseuse is molding you into a whole self.
You will wake tremulous, an aspen enlivened by wind.
As you rise, she is sage smoke, desert gust;
she is gone.
-Written for me by the lovely Celia