Otherwise, it would not matter
that my fingertips
start just under your ear
and move with impossible
luxury, almost undetectable touch,
down the side of the breathing
throat, over the collarbone
and the supreme smooth paleness
of the shoulder,
down the inside of your arm,
finding the slight blue veins
of the wrist, and lingering
long in the palm.
Without the body,
why would i want
the gesture to consume a thousand years?
Without the body, where
would memory knot
us to the world?
from Sense (James Owens)