Touched

To celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving I treated myself to a massage.  I have only had one other massage in my life - seven years ago - and the following day I rushed myself to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.  That massage confirmed something I had known for a long time: Touch = Trauma.  Well, a new country, a new attitude, a new attempt at intimacy.  I couldn't find prose to sufficiently express my experience, so I tossed it into a poem.  Not my finest work, but I think it captures something of the essence:

Touched

Strong arms – lift me -- tug me – stretch me

Cradle me.

Our breath in sync, soft on my arm as I am held

By a stranger.

My lifetime of touch in 90 minutes.

His fingers find my weakness, my faults, my wounds.

And there I – naked I –

A sheet between us

A sheet and some oil

A sheet, some oil and a role,

between us.

I want to reciprocate

To stroke back

To touch

To open my eyes and see –

But I don’t.

I feel each push – each detail-

The nail of his thumb

The mindful adjustment of the sheet

The creak of the floorboards

Someone’s growling stomach

My inability to fully let go.

He covers my eyes, then uncovers them-

Obscurity to clarity – here and there.

Under the edge of the blindfold

I see him lift a chair, a heavy chair

Over me-

Placing it at my head.

So exact.  So precise.

In this small apartment, everything has a place

Everything in its place.

I lay in my place.

Where’s his bed?

Perhaps he doesn’t sleep –

Perhaps he doesn’t sleep – here.

But shoes – lined up – in their place –

Under the radiator.

“Jason” he speaks my name – reminding me,

“There’s a towel,” – he places it at my hip.

We’re finished.

He retreats to the small bathroom-

The bathroom with no towels –

Just a speedo hanging where a towel would be.

He waits there

Giving me privacy

(His hands were all over me)

He gives me privacy.

Oil marks on the sheets-

Soiled sheets.

He’s in the bathroom

With the speedo.

I’m covered in oil.

I use the towel at my hip.

I dress- quietly.

Am I changing?

When I finish dressing, “I’m good,”

I announce.

The toilet flushes and he reappears.

Builtlikeahokeyplayer. 

Formalities.

Money.

Receipts.

Sip of water.

Does he know what this meant for me?

Words are empty- flaccid

(How was I flaccid?)

“Thanks” I say.

“It was my pleasure,” he replies.

“It was my pleasure,” I say,

“It was your work.”

Was he composing shopping lists?

Fine tuning the next poem?

Was he there?  Why do I care?

I attempt a joke as I exit – not so funny.

He mentions autumn – the sun – the light –

(What is it about Montrealers and the light? This beautiful fucking light?)
I smile.

My body tingles, pulses.

A chair blocks the door.

He moves it.

“I’ll be in touch.”

In touch.

I descend the stairs

Feeling the rise of each.

But

I forget –

He has warned me-

But I forget.

Gliding out the door, without my arm to guide it,

the door slams behind me.