Touch Me But Don’t Tell Me Where
noah baldino
Audio: Noah Baldino reads.
I guess I’m no longer
a lesbian. Summer’s done. I’m nothing
now, the way a dog whistle’s no hum
to the human ear, or my moderately-sized
couch was no trouble to the Tinder-date-gone-
decent who, in the morning, helped me
move. How many more times will
the frenzied hands of a cisman freeze
as my I wriggle up my binder, spring
my breasts into the half-light? Like that
dachshund in Toy Story, I’m unsuspected
until spread. Then, suddenly, I’m
something else he no longer wants
to play with. If I’d been given
a penis, I might’ve eased it deep
inside the coils of a rainbow-
sherbet-colored Slinky. Instead,
I try to touch myself—the lights on,
though dimmed—but keep passing
my hand just above the skin.
*
My hand just above
the skin, I try
to touch myself.
A Slinky’s shadow makes a hundred haloes
interlocked. I try to touch
the morning
before it knows it
is. Two swallows sleeping
on the right pigtail
of a Wendy’s bag.
It’s winter.
I try to touch myself
but my arm skims
my breasts. Touch myself
but my hips. My heavy
touch. The loose change of the dog’s collar spilling.
But she does lap up water
through the door. She does something
with her tongue
to drink. Another’s hand
could never
help. Touch me but
don’t tell me
where. My bra straps snug
around the snowman’s shoulders. Touch me
where the window cracks.
In every place the cold comes
through. I brought him
to my mouth
we say. I took him in
my mouth. Footfalls in
the upstairs neighbor’s hall.
A floorboard creaks above my cheeks.
The puddle on my nightstand blooms.
My hymn
a soundless step. It rarely hits.
I overheard it
in some other room.