You let sensation think without becoming language too quickly.
The poem moves like a careful hesitation, each line not advancing so much as testing the threshold between arrival and restraint. Touch is never fully granted its completion; it remains in a state of near-contact, where perception becomes more intimate than possession.
Even grammar loosens here, shedding punctuation the way skin sheds certainty, so that experience can remain porous rather than concluded. And in that porosity, the body is not described from outside, it is listened to from within its own anticipation.
What lingers most is the final inversion: not that touch leaves a memory, but that the surface itself becomes the remembering.
Ooohhh Dipiti. You picked up on the grammar “bit”. Yes, I played around a little at the end. Skin isn’t uniform or smooth everywhere. Different textures, softness, elasticity and more and the words felt like they needed to embody that, so I’m really pleased it came through for you.
oooohhhhh - I love you let it get under your skin a little bit Asuka! that was just the place the hush happens. Don’t worry about the walls. I’ll have a chat to them later 💛
Beautiful, Mark. I have to say that after waking up in my cold lonely hotel room this was just the warmth I needed to get through the day. Your words are like a warm cup of tea for my heart.
You let sensation think without becoming language too quickly.
The poem moves like a careful hesitation, each line not advancing so much as testing the threshold between arrival and restraint. Touch is never fully granted its completion; it remains in a state of near-contact, where perception becomes more intimate than possession.
Even grammar loosens here, shedding punctuation the way skin sheds certainty, so that experience can remain porous rather than concluded. And in that porosity, the body is not described from outside, it is listened to from within its own anticipation.
What lingers most is the final inversion: not that touch leaves a memory, but that the surface itself becomes the remembering.
Ooohhh Dipiti. You picked up on the grammar “bit”. Yes, I played around a little at the end. Skin isn’t uniform or smooth everywhere. Different textures, softness, elasticity and more and the words felt like they needed to embody that, so I’m really pleased it came through for you.
Thanks!
I had such a good time inside allllll that hush and skin and almost-touch... and now I’m just staring at the wall a little bit wrecked.
oooohhhhh - I love you let it get under your skin a little bit Asuka! that was just the place the hush happens. Don’t worry about the walls. I’ll have a chat to them later 💛
This is a beautiful snapshot of a moment in time, Mark. Loved it 🥰
Thank you so much Niamh! 🤗
It’s all true 😊
Beautiful, Mark. I have to say that after waking up in my cold lonely hotel room this was just the warmth I needed to get through the day. Your words are like a warm cup of tea for my heart.
Thank you Margaret.
So pleased this brought some warmth to you when you needed it 😊
Take care ❤️ ❤️ ❤️