sort of not touching you

When it’s not as lovers we touch, your touch is gray,
tinged with ashes from a distant day
when sandhill cranes fell from the clouds as noise
amidst the chatter of young Hispanic boys.

When it’s not as lovers we touch, you don’t sway
against my heartbeat. Sliced from you, I say
something there is that doesn’t like a wall,
but it echoes into nothing, takes a fall

like the owls that seemed to graze our heads one night
as we walked the gravel road, as hand in hand
we lingered on the broken dolomite
to kiss. Silent. Nothing to understand.

As though you were a clerk, I scarcely touch
your hand to get my change. It isn’t much.