Incursion
March 7 2017


A child deprived of touch
will fail to thrive.
He wastes away from the inside,
growing brittle-boned
hollowed-out.

The voice in my head
that howls and pleads
cries, berates.
Like the obedient child,
seen 
but never heard.

My personal space
moves with me
as I make my way through the world.
Like a big pneumatic bubble
it has inflated with age,
its invisible rim
more and more impervious.
Poke in here, it pushes out there,
a thin elastic skin
that always reverts
to a perfect squeaky sphere.
Because in this vast country of winter
there is plenty of space
and we keep our distance,
eyes averted, elbows out;
all of us
bouncing off, like bumper cars
as we jostle along.

Until the static, building up-and-up
is all at once on fire. 
The electric touch
of opposite charge,
the flux of base desire.



The poem began with my awareness of what a large personal space I surround myself with. I have an acute sense of boundary, infringement, threat. Apart form individual differences, this notion of personal space is very culturally specific:  so much bigger in 1st world countries of the West than crowded 3rd world ones. 

It also began with something more personal, and that I think is causally related:  my feeling that I suffered through much of my life from lack of touch:  my family was/is not very demonstrative or openly affectionate; I don't think my personality as a child was particularly inviting of touch; and I've been solitary most of my adult life. If not for my dogs, I'd be terminally damaged!