From: rhys@twics.com   

In The Morning Before We Leave The Hotel
 
the hand is a brush,
the hair flows through  sluice gate fingers
 
oily hair from not being home  in days
this bed these sheets these walls breathe strangers
 
Yet, I am awake and curiously saved
having been wrapped beyond recall
by some ancient    desperate  to preserve
 
having been uncovered by you
unwrapped by your instruments
such as they  are, I am comforted
by the smell of your thick blood,
by the curls in your voice
and the sight of you
as by no one else                 
 
*****
 
the hand is this curious nervous instrument
weaving patterns  in sleep,
a madman hanging from a ledge
I sense your weight  in bed   reach out
for the press of your lips against my palm
like a drug to dissolve illness
or fight back seizures,
a blanket of you covers my consciousness
 
in the distance the solid black engine awakens
to take me safely to tomorrow,
as far away as tomorrow.
 
*****
 
the hand is a vessel
into which you flow yourself
focusing a senseful joy in these palms
while in the room that meets the world
as I confront this countenance
the shape of my disappointment gathers
I hurt myself for years before
without purpose
 
and now to be known and captured
matters more to me
than all the rusty spikes and tortures of my psyche
 
				-rhys