The problems only hands know how to frame,
The questions that the skin alone has heard,
We cope with in converse—but never name;
We discourse with the tongue, but not the word.
Though I’m no longer sure of your replies,
Though moans are pressed beneath an unknown load,
Thick breaths run thin, and perspiration lies.
We have to walk as though we knew the road.
Perhaps there is no way out of the knot
That fingers tie (and tighten till they bleed)
Supposing that, what I need, you do not,
Pretending what we want is what we need;
Till careless hands may tear the flesh apart,
Unraveling the puzzle at the heart.