touching me where few have been
his voice warm, deep, masculine
has its own contours and texture;
in his smallest of laughs is
 a potent gesture that holds and envelops me

yet there is a mystery in his words
in which i see an inner man
grow gradually more transparent
whose magic peels me back
petal by petal like the sun opening a bud

i have never before encountered anything 
that matches the power of his perception 
for which reason i let its complexity
feel my mind like an archaeologist
a wall of hieroglyphics

it is hard to know
how he touches from that distance
only something in me
understands the caress of his voice
is safer than home

nothing, not even the wind on nakedness
reaches into such unreachable places