Karen Pierce Gonzalez
The World Ends in a Single Handshake
The world ends in a single handshake –
the way that touch is a song
taken for granted until the drum
stops beating; the wake of a storm
too slick to predict. In the thick
of it, people say they miss
certain skin the way that I miss
the children at storytime – their hands shaking
out rhymes every morning, my voice thick
as I tread the trapeze of familiar song.
Was it wrong to celebrate each snowstorm
now that distance haunts you like a drum?
I still sing each morning, drum
my fingertips on tabletop, miss
the backtalk of toddlers crying – storm
of tantrum and too much hunger. My hands shake
when I wonder at the power of song,
how all along I’ve been thick
with magic – a power so love-thick
I can’t hold the weight. My neighbor’s daughter drums
on the ceiling, her feet stumbling a song
that doesn’t miss a beat – doesn’t miss
holding me captive as a handshake
with a heart-shaped grenade. She’s a storm
of childhood electricity – every rainstorm
an opportunity to grow thick
with excess energy. Her hands shake
on the windowpane – rain, rain, go away – the drum
of her dream, a plea for all that we miss.
This moment is a song
on everyone’s lips – birdsong
that stretches over distance and through storm.
Today, tomorrow – it’s uncertain how we will miss
one another’s advances – song slung like an arrow, thick
glances that ache like the storm of a drum.
You miss me the way I miss your hands – how they shake,
how they hum.
Jessica Furtado is an artist in multiple mediums & a librarian. Her visual work has been featured in Muzzle Magazine, PANK, & Waxwing, and her writing has appeared in apt, Stirring, & VIDA Review. Her debut poetry chapbook A Kiss for the Misbehaved is forthcoming from BatCat Press. Visit Jess at www.jessicafurtado.com.
At home in Northern California, Karen Pierce Gonzalez is a mixed-media assemblage artist. Her work has been shown at Truckenbrod Gallery (Oregon), Santa Rosa Arts Center, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, TINY GALLERIES, Virtual Art in the Park and other places. Each piece is a conversation with tree bark, branches, roots, chalk/oil pastels, fibers, found materials and, when lucky (really lucky), salmon leather. Website: karenpiercegonzalez.blogspot.com.