Helen

The soft rasp of skin against skin,
hands, waltzing through conversation or
palms like chests,
melding, communicative.

In the Afterwards --
while he, on the edge of the bed,
exhausted but replenished
cradles his temples in his own hands,
droops his head between his knees.
   There is the shadow of sensation
   in the valley of his shoulder blades

During --
those were the palms,
cupping the balls of my hips (inside
that grip my joints rocked,
rotating within themselves like our
flesh within flesh).
Behind me he formed the vortex of our angle --
we felt strong enough
to support walls.
   We could have built the Parthenon
   over and
   over.
And days later --
in the Afterwards --
just talking to men would birth them,
tight flashbacks where
I felt entire cities erecting within me --
memories of our garden of pillars.

Indirectly, in his hands
forms solid as marble were burgeoning
(definite as rhythm or gasping)
Rome and all her colonies like capillaries
beneath my skin,
blooming and inverting
blooming,
stone peonies.

(c)Katie Panateo

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA