Echo

Echo

 

I could only speak in the sweet ironies of repetition,

so when he said, “Do not touch me,” I replied:

“Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me,” and

after a while again, “touch me”, till he turned

tail on me and made towards the pool. I would

have cried out some new and original thought

had it not eluded me – but I could think only

of the touching that wasn’t to be – the caress

he would ever forbear to offer. There was a cold

shrinking inside me. Most parts of me became

superfluous. I ghosted about the flesh-white

stalagmites. Bats flew through me. When you

whisper in the cave, I take your last syllables,

shape them into the line of my jaw, the curve

of my breasts, a suggestion of lips and hair –

come close to embodiment, then fade. Say it

one more time. I’ll try it all again. “Touch me.”

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2012. The picture is based on a two-minute life-drawing sketch, 7th December, 2012.

 

Done