suddenly remembering the feel

suddenly remembering the feel of your fingers

on my upper arm, as my own absentmindedly slip

up under my t-shirt’s sleeve

on this hot crawl through afternoon traffic

between errands, my thoughts drifting

back to the recent past now

as they have been lately, again and again,

like little boats in a marina

tugging against their painter ropes

when a new tide rises and rolls in,

reorienting all things on the surface

to roughly heed together the direction of the deep

try and untether me, too,

unknown movement in my life!

I’ll still cling to what’s stable, but only just barely,

as resignation to this current cuts at threads

with the exquisite attenuated suspense

that characterizes flirting at its best