by Marissa Bell Toffoli.
My hands. Crooked digits
require touch to understand.
My mouth, with its tongue that stumbles
when I would it were steady,
voice that quivers when it should project.
My feet run ahead.
My legs like to stretch
and these ankles give without warning.
There is the weather of my hair:
straight strands on a dry summer day,
wild waves when it’s humid or rainy.
How it all expands in the fog. I know my breath.
Warm, sometimes quiet, sometimes quick, too shallow.
A midnight thirst and rusty mornings.
I know my pulse, keeper of time.
And, not least, old friend, my heart?
Its ache—
how it anchors one.
A job so large, so simple: go on.
Feel it dance behind my ribs.
I know how it always feels
like I’m looking at her through a keyhole.