April 18, 2008: The Problem With Skin, Aimee Nezhukumatathil
The Problem With Skin
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
is not how it keeps all of you in,
a miracle quite, a thing. But how
it remembers and remembers even if
the grey pocket in your brain says forget.
Our Health teacher screeched her lecture
of Five Senses. Think of babies: how they die
if they are fed, but not touched! Think
of the first subjects of this experiment.
Think of Ms. Herling’s forehead vein like
a river gone horribly wrong. Clematis whorls
around the mailbox a brilliant purple, the only
movement my mail has seen—the cells of each
inch of vine, mitochondria gnashing
against the sunlight, begging to let loose
their brilliance. Your weight above me is still
so new, but I’ve memorized the curl of your
fingers into my back, the hot center of my palm.
Each dip and swirl of your lips is branded
onto my skin like its very own thumbprint—
without even trying to, my skin separates your
kisses like a centrifuge. They rise to the surface,
I skim them like cream. I pour over.
Can you hear the cow calls so low, so swoll?
A year ago today: Serenade, Terrance Hayes
Two years ago: The Old Liberators, Robert Hedin
Three years ago: Morning Song, Sylvia Plath
