for saints have hands

for palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss
our first touch, for fact, no sweeter than this

and in each breath you have spoken to me
each corded ridge and bristle
(each sigh of flight you have afforded to me)
(unimaginable theather and thistle)

that we are decorations in political make-up, perhaps. that we are sigils in iconic depiction, perhaps.

that nothing could possibly be said about us that has not already been and done, perhaps. that invention and self-filigree are no longer our emboldened cue.

but we are also as simple as though people we have been set apart from. also as real. also as whole.

(fishy, whole, and unavailable. those were the first words that came to melia, when she saw nia. unavailable before unafraid; and unafraid, of course, did not last.)

each jumbled collection of thought and meaning, transmitted through a quasi-literal butterfly-wing effect of light, could not do more than join their minds.

and yet, did their minds even matter?

(unavailable. of course, pragmatically, semantically, logistically, such a spirit is unavailable. literally, she is. but melia's heart did not bide it. melia's hands did not mind it, when they kissed as only they knew.)

not a coy, joking turn of phrase. not so ridiculous and un-artfully-available as it may appear.

so much of what is spoken aloud...it may merely be flavored air.

for these hands that clasp, as lightly as tea and as gracefully as a bow and bow well-proportioned, had indeed been set into motion by vastly intelligent years-maturing minds, but these hands, themselves...

feathers and diamonds lack sweet inoccasion
not careless nor ever do the unadorned see

they are only touching. for saints have hands, and pilgrims do touch, to see meaning in what they have cherished as extrareal.

hands swim above bust height to make themselves view; to gesture and to illustrate in coherence what this body portends.

it is only lower that hands may parlay in secret. may kiss, may wander, may fingerspell.

perhaps, in time, the mind and hand will meet. but for now, they are only joined, in praying.