Nothing touches like tan velvet touches
the palm. Now the cracks come, because what gives
without taking?—Doesn't exist. Say

you forget what is lanolin, what is raw about fleece
uncarded & unwashed. Say the silver feel
of charmeuse lines your sleep. You've lost

what there was before pins & needles, sound
a scissors makes through cloth on a hardwood floor,
thick waist of the dressmaker's dummy. Don't tell me

any more. Without Burano lace, without cinnabar
strung on a cuff, shantung and satin and netting and swiss:
no rich man, no camel, no needle's threatening eye.