Character

I can feel your eyes on me. Somehow.

My head is turned. It's not by accident that I let my hair down.

A black veil, it's cover enough for me.

Enough to cover all introspection.

 

As I well know, your lashes narrow, your brow deepens, and

shadows darken the indentions of your face.

Conversation is tedious. I find we wander in and out of attention, fluid in

language, yet abrupt in dialogue.

 

Senses are forever misleading among strangers.

 

A touch to feel. Offer a hand.

Yours is firm and warm. Mine is soft and cold.

The difference startles us both, but soon our temperatures will steady.

 Yours will chill. Mine will rise a little, just a little.

Our bodies will settle into comfort. Likeness makes it so.

 

Then beyond a meeting

a lingering, a happening, an adjustment.

But what will make you familiar to me

 and I to you?

 

What will we ever know

 that we know

 about one another?

 

                                Can we ever really say, "I happened to another.“

 

Certainty is never certain after all

because change is constant

 and humanity is marked

 by the desire to discover, to rediscover..

 

So is it because of instinct

that if  I were to smell a hint of musk

 or a twinge of pine in the air,

that my head would lift;

that my eyes would seek out

a face with your features:

 the arch of your jaw,

 the meticulous expression

 of your cheekbones?

 

Do I know you so well?

 

 

Once your every characteristic has been written

onto my retina,

 carved into my memory,

sewn somewhere beneath my skin- what then?

 How then, is it possible

that I do not at all

 know

 your character?