Touch (Johnny Levy)

This guy mashed my face in with his elbow

When we were playing basketball.
Old cornfed, elbow-swinging suckah. 

I had to get four stitches

At the time all I could think was 

How my lip somehow felt 

Bigger than my whole mouth puth together

And I mopped the bloody chasm,

And Cornfed followed me 

Apologizing, and I nodded, and 

Didn’t really try to smile as I 

Asked the properly concerned

Rec attendants for ice. 

Old cornfed, elbow-swingin suckah.

The Doc, she said I could get stitches

Or not. 

I said lemme have it, I ain’t had

Stitches for a while. 

I lay down.  Doc adjusted the light with handles. 

The nurse slid this white sheet over my face

That had a hole innit around my jutting mouth. 

The nurse was older. 

A wide-eyed and tender wisp of bones. 

She didn’t chew her lip except maybe in her mind,

And she covered my hand with hers, leaf light,

For three seconds. 

I stared into blind whiteness. 

The Doc gave me the needle. 

Then I felt the numb tugging of string, 

All the while staring into the blank sheet.

I felt it with my whole body 

When the nurse took her hand away. 

A door, closing. 

I didn’t need it

But it was nice. 

I admired that nurse for three seconds.

Because she touched my hand like that. 

And she didn’t even know me. 

And I am a 6’3” coffee-skinned brown eyes.

Been told that I intimidate even without trying,

Current cultural trends being what they are, 

And the violence in hip hop and whatnot. 

But it was nice. 

But what am I, supposed to give her a cookie

For doing her job? 

Should I expect nice chewy-lip eyed nurse-ladies

Not to touch me? Am I supposed to give her a cookie? 

Cornfed, elbow-swingin suckah, I saw

The crack of light that was almost beautiful

When his elbow blasted me. 

And now this Doc yankin strings 

Through my broken flesh, this

White, this flat, flat white sheet.

Like an animal. It holds back my eyes

So I can’t see the Doc. 

Like her digging up in my lip

Is none of my business. 

So I stare down the my nose through the hole

And I can see my lip stretching nasty like a marionette--

Is that all I wasn’t supposed to see? 

It’s white veils like this on my face

That make me so surprised by the tenderness of a

White, blue-veined hand on my hand, 

I think, I think I wear this white veil

To school and work and home and bathroom too

You get it? I don’t. Quite. 

But it has something to do with people and their

Places, what we use in our points  

Of contact to make sure we all 

Know who’s who. 

Shiny nightstick

So I know a cop is a cop, white veil over my 

Face so that I know Doc is doing

The Doc’s business, not to be confused with 

My business, I not being a doctor, but a patient, 

Not even that--a lip that needs stitching. 

And him? An elbow. A big, cornfed elbow. 

And them, white, and me

Not. And the sky? Blue. 

God made us in his image. 

We make one another

Into the image of what  

We want to chew on for the moment. 

Shopping for things

That fit well into cabinets. 

Shopping for things of taste. 

But then, 

The reach. 

The almost trembling 

Touch

Of a soft hand on mine

That might have poked through 

The linen on our faces for three--

Through the fabric that strains the light

For three, for three seconds,

Three glorious seconds.