Clush

There’s a ring around you
spreading out in tides and
ripples and sparklets of you –
I felt it from far, from
the distance, the‘lontano’;
you gave a subtle wave,
as you turned the corner,
and strode, almost bounced
across the square; but I’d
felt the ring like a tug of
spring across my skin and,
from its curve, knew you
its centre before the hand-raise
across the flags –
the sign of you.
In close – now – then? –
all now is then – a brush of
hand – did mine hold yours? –
yours mine? Was it? Is it?
A touch of
hand – hand in hand – yours
in mine – mine in yours? But –
unplanned – unthought – unthinking –
dream-lost, dream-found in
passing, in moment of passing
some momentum, some hand in
the small of me, powered
me to cheek to cheek – no
aura, none of that – just,
just cheek-sting, cheek-
scratch, but I noticed it then, here
at the sun’s core,
the clash of core to
Venus, of anima to soul; I felt
your soul cry out across the
square, through the dawn of
circles and rummage around
the alleys, earthen and Saturn,
the dark alleys in me.