With your permission
   the only animal that runs toward fire
   to save, to gawk, to liven up the night,
   cancels with fire the quick networks of borders.
   I celebrate, with your permission, the borders
   of human beings, the profiles lifting and turning
   in drivers' seats, the parallels that bend
   and meet at the tear ducts of the eye.
   No longer frightened of fontanels,
   I touch the soft craters of the mind cap
   and root my nose gratefully in whorls
   of babies' ears. I celebrate the skin,
   the curves of women, the straight hips of men,
   my hand with its own life
   and tiny Pavlovian memories
   of cusps in the arms of chairs and handkerchiefs
   drawn like cold brooks through the fingers.
   I sing the damaged hands of les Eyzies,
   and Friday's footprint,
   triangles in tempera of the holy.
   As over the hump of windowsill more evening
   crawls, I contemplate full moons
   of countdown, after nine of which we come
   with hanks of cord trailing from our bellies.
   I celebrate, with your permission, the bellies,
   the treasure kegs of aging males,
   big bodies coming out of showers,
   and the taut ramparts of little girls.
   The approaching sine curve of an elbow
                                  gazed at and touched by a pregnant woman,
   I gaze at, and also touch, then sing
   the double string between the eyes of lovers.
   Faces, known and unknown, delineate
   like the moon suddenly in breaks of cloud.
   I celebrate and sing
   all the beloved faces, all, M.O.A.B.,
   and tickle the cittern for the cloud as well.
   I wave as if positioned for goodbye
   and, at the same time, for hello
   in the borderless shadow of the lingam.

   Henry Braun