Salmon Poetry

Ruth’s White Glove

for Toni Morrison

The man with heavy

hands fumbles with

pearl buttons, a long

row of small buttons

shining like moons

in a universe of mites.

Down the satin white

he works, awkwardly

painstakingly, as if

he were a wave grasping

single grains of sand.

One by one he undoes

them, him all thumbs

and praying it be proper

this slow solemn rushing

solemn so slow rushing

when the last at last

releases from its loop

the glove sloughs off

and he strokes her

naked flesh, believing

the whole while it is he

who has been touched.

Audio and Video