My Favourite Port

T his is my favourite port
show me she says
desiring something more
specific

so i touch
the tiny valley
above her upper lip
this is not it

so i touch
the bone-lit valley
along her lower back
this is not it

so i touch (don’t tickle)
the aqueduct-
arch of her water-bearing foot
this is not it

and since i am
the hollow man
devoted to depressions
lover of concavities

the falling star-struck parts
the smoothly cupped curved
and catching shallow valleys
soft trough kneeling-in-clay parts

the whirling wolf paddy-pawed
bedding-down places
the stepping-wear of ancient stairs
cathedral niches for hummingbird pairs

the incurved indented in-grooved engraved —
but not etched — softly
bluntly spoonly palmly places
the windward side of the sail,

i finally touch
that hollow between her clavicles
the sternal notch it’s called among
other things

where perspiration pools
i place
a whispered pointer
there there, this is it

a thimble portion formed in darkness
with far less pressure
than a criminal’s thumb
(assisted, of course, by

the arresting officer) on the inkpad sponge
and i get to follow
follow follow follow follow
the culpable finger of God