The kiss in the center of the palm

like that last warm day, like the low

rose-copper light through a break in the clouds

after the late afternoon storm.

The talisman. The charm. The secret

wish. The treasure cached beneath the stairs.

The kiss, these hands that would have laid

upon you, these feet that would

have walked beside you.

Is it the storm, or the clearing afterwards

that reminds me so of you?

As if your fingertips could part

those clouds. As if the leaves could tremble

half as willingly as your lips that night

you let me trace them, under stars.

Like the secret in the fairy tale,

it turns out everybody knew.

And what were we doing, really,

but staving off something we didn’t want to touch—

the threat of — I don’t know —

I can’t say it, even now.

After dark, even the tallest towering cumulonimbus

is invisible, the regathering storm

completely cloaked — save for the smell,

the tang in the air, a tactile chill.

I remember that night you took my hand

in the rain, ran with me to shelter—

our arms, our faces wet with storm.

As if such love could save us

I remember you loved lightning:

that piercing, unreliable light.

Anne Haines (IN)  is a staff member of the Indiana University Libraries. Her work recently appeared in Blackbird, Calyx, Cortland Review, and Poetry from Sojourner: A Feminist Anthology (University of Illinois Press, 2004). She is the recipient of an Honorable Mention award in the Thomas Merton Foundation’s “Poetry of the Sacred” contest.