by Roberta Jupin

I am just one in the legions of the untouched.
We are the solitary, the disfigured, the aged, the dying.
We are skin-starved. We hide our hunger.

When the doctor gently
covered my hand with his
during a painful medical procedure,
when my usually gruff neighbor
gave me a friendly rub between my shoulder blades,
only then did I remember
I had been untouched for so long.

And so every night I lie awake
remembering that gentle hand,
that sweet touch,
until I fall asleep and dream it
to make it happen all over again.