“Touch Me” © Mike
Absalom January 3rd 2012

After a night of terrible
storm
a bright windy morning
flutters and flaps around the chimney pots
like a murder of crows
celebrating some furtive vendetta.
How urgently the kettle sings
in the kitchen,
as if racing to a fire.
I am untouched.

In the western sky a winter
dawn rises out of the night,
pale-faced and unblushing,
slowly shredding the morning
clouds like old love letters.
There is a purposeful
indifference about her
as I watch them thrown coldly
into the face of the
unwritten day.
How urgently the kettle sings
in the kitchen,
as if racing to a fire.
I am untouched.

Like a smoker collapsing
under the craving
I inhale the turf smoke that
curls around the house.
Give me at least a lung-full
of dead sunshine.
Give me at least a lung-full
of yesterday.
How urgently the kettle sings
in the kitchen,
as if racing to a fire.
I am untouched.

Who discovered first that the
earth will burn if you set it alight?
I have walked upon the
burning earth and it is no great trick.
I was untouched.
I am untouched.

But touch me now.
Please touch me!