Don’t Touch
A poem for white poets like Braeden.
A sculpture. Its culture.
Preservered perfect and frozen,
the artists last motion,
for hundreds of years,
Shown peering on a pedestal,
placed and still.
Underneath the bust
A sign. One line:
DO NOT TOUCH.
“Please?” I plead.
I'm standing under closely,
I see Its Crafted very carefully,
I understand the rules,
but geez!
This care of mine fufills me.
The wanderlust of this wonderous bust,
seaped in older seas and lands,
places I would never breathe in.
Maybe can touch it as a sign of respect! It's perfect!
The curves, the way the faces are etched
Coal brown stained, the woodgrain is is Afri...
Can I just place a friendly hand?
Oh suitable sculpture please comprehend!
Understood you hunk of wood?!
Just kidding. Just joking. It's fine.
Sign. Sign. Everywhere a sign.
It don't say much.
Just says “DON’T TOUCH.”
No way it couldn't be trusted.
Unfortunately for us...
Hey what if it said, “appreciate don't appropriate.”
I think that's great!
Appreciate its Appropri..ate
to Maybe just dip in a tiny finger tip in?
I know it's origin. It's just a little sip
And I get it. It’s delicate
The statue…but my hands too…
They’re delicate as tempered glass.
I cleaned them just this afternoon.
I windexed the prejudice right off in the museum bathroom.
I wiped jaggedy hands down to a finetoothed end,
so shiny tiny birds are trying to fly right through them.
If pretty little blue birds fly
Right into it…if they think they can do it.
Why so can i too if I wipe the proventriculouses
Off the blade and into all of us just
one bloody finger at a time, and
Windex again.
Just the smallest little blade in.
Like Eddy Scissorhands and a bush, baby,
I won't scratch the wood.
My hands are clean pieces of stained glass,
glossed in ordained chemical odors built for lasting,
the same things saints and good intentions are cast in.
And I'll just asking to bleed my little prickle pinky,
under the nailbed of an untouchable sacred hand.
That I totally understand.
I'll be a handprint in sand.
All promise no land.
Ain't that right ol’ sculpty?
Just your pinky and my pinky,
it's a secret we can keep.
I touch you because you've touched me…
I've been touched so much by those marvelous hands
I want to be a part of them — not apart of them
Just looking it sends me , there can be no action telepathically
I need tactile empathy!
I need something holding me.
As if my emotion was real motion.
I'm going in!
Just for a drop…
Just for a drip…
Just one finger in the ear…. one finger on the lip…
just a shiny tiny finepoint finger tip…
…
…
…
“You better not.”
Voice clear and hard. Security guard.
…
…
“You bet.” I thought.
Clasped glass hands back gripped,
as they itched, for a stitch, of the statuesque plastic.
…
Security guard,
"the thing is cursed."
…
“It's cursed?”
…
“Just kidding. It's worse.”
…
“It's worse?”
…
“You ever sculpted before? Would you even know what a sculpture is for?”
…
“It touches?”
…
“Ah…Touche ...
but it's not seeking grimy finger oils today.
It's only looking for eyes.
And your ears if they're tuned.
It's beaming out a beating you can dance to.
But just because it dances with you.
Doesn't mean that you can touch.
In fact...
You could use another common sense.
Courtesy? Consent? Perhaps?”
…
“I sculpt!” I snap.
Made a decision the next exhibition would
be my own glass sculpture,
with a sign built right in that says:
"Touch it all you want.
Smack off in seconds the fine daily details I carved with sharded digits.
Just plug a sticky thumb right in the little crevice
I etched in to express my struggle and joy!
Fuck My art! And hold your dumb thumb inside it like a half smoked dart.”
...
Security guard.
“That's your sculpture man. You won't get it near here.
Don't let it touch me and I won't touch it either.
But read clearly, and trust me, see here,
under this bust, it says don't touch.”
…
“I mean it doesn't say please… see?
Why can't you Appease me?”
…
“Appease yourself.
Or go to hell.
The sculpture is called:
The wishing well.”
...
“Well I wish I could touch it.”
...
“You can't wish for that.”
...
“Okay then. Shit. I guess I will ask ... for….
...
…
…
Maybe I'll stand by. Stare at it more.”