Texture

(published in the 2005 Review)

Wrap me, layered,
in tweed and corduroy;
texture to breathe life
into a grey Formica world.
Even the secrets
Victoria supplies me
are plaid.
My brain is patchwork,
a hodgepodge,
an eclectic selection
of what my eyes
have gleaned of art,
books, earth and darkness-
what my hands have known
of skin, of ice, of locust trees,
what my spine has felt
of weight, of work, of sweat.
Grooves and weaves
for the holes in my life,
stitches for the gapes.
No silk can drape over
my coarse, thread-bare,
and haggard soul;
no satin capture the grain
of all that my mind contains.
Wrap me in rough and toothy cloth
so, by contrast,
I can somehow believe
that my skin is still soft
and I am not entirely without
some innocent newness.