Writing a Poem is a Lot Like Giving a Massage

Writing a Poem is a Lot Like Giving a Massage
by Christine Reilly
Your fingers, miniscule purple whales who beach themselves
when your (ambi)dexterity gets too complicated for the poems
lodged in your throat.  My bedroom: the steam room
and yours: the sauna.  So many others claimed to care;
swarms and swarms of people outside.  Listening.
Your poems contained rhythm and your poems contained passion
and you had to choose one.  You grabbed
my vocal chords and squeezed them so anxiously
they melted into something dangerous and low.
Every time we switched places, breathing got too complicated.
You touched me once, on the inside of my eyelashes,
chopping them off with your tiny pair of hands.