Touch glides under my skin to caress the gentle stream flowing down the mountainside into the depths of my heart. My step too is touch, fond of the accumulated water, fond of moving on worn out soles in this very lifetime. Each toe takes to the whisp of winter grazing the manifold branches within me. A pulsating open and close like flaps pressed to my muted words, expanding their reach to the sun.

On the windowsill the angel looks on, dives deep, lays the strands of me across mountain face and lake, tilts my head towards the hold of the sun just as the duck’s beak shatters the surface. Ripples cover vast space.