The earliest pleasure I remember
is velvet. My grandmother
sewed a little red coat for me.
Softness unlike plush or cotton
or even the robe my morning
mother wore.
I was too young to know age
has a number or that the coat
was something I could outgrow.
Since, I have stroked the fur of a puppy’s
ear. Smoothed warm, fine
beach sand. Thumbed
a polished stone. I have cupped
the burn of snow and run my open hand
through the sundown wind
but have never quite found the same
harmony of nerve endings.
I came closest with a lover’s skin.
And have learned that if you stroke the nap
of woven silk backwards
it ruins everything.
Fingertips erode with age, touch
roughened into a crude braille.
I find feelings now mostly in a word:
the name of the fabric
of a little red coat.
