After I have travelled your scalp
for twenty-two and a half minutes
dissolving the knots
smoothing the cramped
furrows of pain
you ask me what I think about
when I stroke your brows
and press your temples
what kind of film’s rolling
while I map the lines and ridges
of nose and cheek and jaw
so I try to tell you what it’s like
to skim the reaches of the Rio Grande
surf the snakebacked Mississippi
float for days above
the red banks of the Cimmaron.
There are words for this,
a poetry —
maps, moving pictures, postcards
a Polaroid or two
but isn’t it the body’s wont
to brush your forearm
where there is no tattoo, no scar
no blemish at all —
let my resting index finger
describe how it is to be me
giving you Indian head massage
in a farmhouse
on the frozen prairie east of Longview
one morning in March
seven weeks before
the first thaws begin.