This lovely hand of yours
The fine warmth and pulse of it – beauty gets
a sounding in the oldest skin, it takes
the flutterings of veins and chimes them through.
The mind slows and alters – as in the grove
of midnight you place a hand on top of mine
then sleep, full-upright in your blue-winged chair,
TV on, the weekend’s business – a grand-
daughter’s wedding – now over. Dark clocks round,
intimate and mute. Inside the shape that
two hands make, I have you travelling with the stars,
your palm – enclosure of will and dream – lit
with the scripts of all your being and becoming,
the long, long story of your time.
In this gift of moment, I find myself
humming and whole, stopped at the centre
of whatever your hand has held,
between the moon’s abundance and the sun’s.
Jo Thorpe