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ARTLOOK #7 | December / January 2004/2005
Mathew Abbot
ACT Poetry Award
Hieroglyph
Your body tries to tell me things. It speaks,
I think, in codes: of breath, of wisps of hair,
of golden hands that reach and grasp in sleep.
You're cold, and when I touch your skin with the care
of the blind you bristle with a braille I can't
decrypt. We kiss, and you're a foreign tongue
speaking soft in my mouth: warm, sad. You want
to mean so much, to find a word and stun
us both with truth. It's in your eyes, trying
to write itself in brown. It's caught under
your skin, intent upon signifying
with a language of lines. And I wonder
if I could break your codes, if I could solve
the cipher of your spine and let you say
the things you can't. But I give up, resolve
to stop reading. Eyes closed, I find my way.
You smell of salt. There's no such thing as fear.
Skin touches skin and the world disappears.
