This coral's hape ecohes the hand <br />It hollowed. Its <br /> <br />Immediate absence is heavy. As pumice, <br />As your breast in my cupped palm. <br /> <br />Sea-cold, its nipple rasps like sand, <br />Its pores, like yours, shone with salt sweat. <br /> <br />Bodies in absence displace their weight, <br />And your smooth body, like none other, <br /> <br />Creates an exact absence like this stoneSet on a table with a whitening rack <br /> <br />Of souvenirs. It dares my hand <br />To claim what lovers' hands have never known: <br /> <br />The nature of the body of another.<br /><br />Derek Walcott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/coral-2/
