“Tree Leaves Ice” © Bonnie Matthews Brock

 

Calluses

The earths calluses collide with our footsteps. Coarse tissue torn by time. Rebuilt and rendered. I grab your hand. Your calluses collide with my softness. It’s kinda funny the way nature protects itself. It’s kinda funny that after all this time and after all this blood spilled. I’m more raw than ever.

You touch me gently but also with such passion that I’m afraid your calluses may burn off your fingertips. My skin is far from sharp but it is far from cold. Sometimes I want to touch your tissue the stuff under all those layers. Just to say I was there. I’m selfishly hoping you soften. Hoping you leave yourself vulnerable.

You take my hand. I grip like a chain. I want to be touched but don’t want to feel the weight of hands. The pressure of temporality. But when those celestial organic eyes find me. Nocturnal tombstones with strokes of gold. I can’t stop but fight for you. I press your calluses into the skyline between my lips. Hugged by blue and green. Vast and unforgivingly human.

 

Bella Melardi is a small time disabled poet and author from Toronto Ontario. She writes about the political and personal.

Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, and retired school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University. You can view more of Bonnie’s images on Instagram @bonniematthewsbrock.