Pulse I Followed

Not in Another’s Tongue

It slid beneath thought,
a quiet heat threading through veins
before the mind could name it,
lingering where reason should have been.

 

I felt you first,
a subtle shift in rhythm.
My breath caught.
My shoulders softened.
Something leaned forward
without asking.
(My pulse recalls your hand.)

 

Your attention pressed-
stillness at the small of the back,
heavy, insistent.
Not touch.
Pressure.

 

By the time we were close,
my body recognized
your restraint-
wanting held tight,
deliberate,
as if desire needed witnesses
to remain contained.
(Something that trembles just between us.)

 

When you turned to leave,
I took something small enough
to vanish if it had to-
my mouth, quick, light,
pressing yours
before we could name it.

 

Barely there.
(A trace still burns on my lips.)

 

A contact that lived
in nerves longer than memory
could claim.

 

Later, the space shifted.
Not absence-
interference.

 

A new cadence entered,
a temperature that was not yours.
Something spoke
where sensation had been uninterrupted.

 

My chest froze-
the instant the body knows
whether to remain open
or fold inward.
(A memory of you curls under my skin.)

 

I had opened slowly.
Skin learning trust by degrees.
And suddenly the signal fractured-
as if what passed between us
needed another voice
to make it safe.

 

The body remembers.
It knows timing.
It knows
when what is real
is redirected,
or replaced.

 

What stirred in me existed
in proximity,
in restraint,
in that narrow, charged space
where closeness almost speaks
and waits-
breath suspended,
for the wrong answer,
for the right one
to arrive unannounced.
(You know the pulse I traced.)

 

I am still capable of opening.
Still awake.
Still listening.

 

But now I wait-
for what arrives
without disguise,
without substitution,
without asking
permission
to touch me
where it counts.

 

(I still taste the shadow of your mouth.)

 

And then-
I let it linger.

 

Not mine to claim,
not yet.
(I leave the rest between us-waiting.)

Reviews

[Dee]

Ignore that fossil JayG. If talent had a scent he'd be entirely odourless, and not the old fart he can't help but be. As a scout leader, campfires would beg for rain in sheer pity for the kids. Legend has it he wouldn't know poetry if Byron arrived and slapped him with a fish.

That was a lovely poem. The man without feeling can't grasp it. For evidence, simply read JayG's own (HAHAHAHAHA) poems.

[JayG]

• It slid beneath thought,

“It” slid? What in the pluperfect hells is an “it?” And how can anything “slide beneath thought?” Perhaps you have intent for the meaning of the line that fits some knowledge you have. But as read, the reader has zero context. So, it asnd the rest of the stanza is meaningless to anyone but you.

• I felt you first,

You did? Was that you groping me on the subway Tuesday?

We’ve gone from an unknown “it” to someone unknown “feeling” someone unknown for unknown reasons, in response to unknown stimulus. Why? Unknown.

• My shoulders softened.

You really need to see a doctor for that.

In reality, this is presened very much like Bunthorn’s poem, as it appears in: Patience; or, Bunthorn’s Bride:

OH, HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW!

What time the poet hath hymned

The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,

Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,

How can he paint her woes,

Knowing, as well he knows,

That all can be set right with calomel?


When from the poet's plinth

The amorous colocynth

Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,

How can he hymn their throes

Knowing, as well he knows,

That they are only uncompounded pills?


Is it, and can it be,

Nature hath this decree,

Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?

Or that in all her works

Something poetic lurks,

Even in colocynth and calomel?

I cannot tell.

[Curly Grace]

Thank you for reading.
I’m content to let the poem speak in its own language.

[JayG]

Apparently, the language it speaks is only attractive to a scammer trying to suck you into a pretend art project.

They've been refining the art of poetry for over a thousand years. You can, of course, write in any way you care to. But if the people who are actually selling their poetry feel those skills are necessary, they just may be right.

[Curly Grace]

I understand your view. I’m confident in the poem’s choices, and I won’t be engaging further.