If You Touch Me

   

Please,
go gentle, if you touch me,
today there’s too much to break,
don’t you see these cracks
crawling over
my face, like feathers,
all crumpled and slight? Go tender, if you touch me,
as though brushing starlight with your fingers,
and drawing it near, if you scold me, go quietly,
and whisper
for fear that I startle
too swiftly this day, though if your touch
offers safety,
I will want you;
...go careful,
but stay
    

and make this moment a shelter,
a home, a hide,
for I feel nought but a bird now,
so lost in dark night, and oh, so open,
to being eaten
alive, if you touch me,
say ‘precious’, say ‘shield’, for I give you all I beg,
all I borrow
and steal, that keeps me here,
in weakness, revealed,
with no lies to detect;
please,
if you touch me, say ‘encircle’,
say ‘protect’, and I’ll listen, and I promise
to believe;
   

please,
if you touch me,
don’t be too rough,
don’t pull me, don’t push me, don’t
…rush;
this air and this noise is already harsh enough
to bruise, and to batter
and scrape;
    

please, if you touch me,
just
lay
something like the truth on my skin:
that I am more than this moment;
this flaw;
   

that I am still everything.