Touchstone

After so many deaths, I live and write;
I once more taste the dew and rain
and relish versing.
- George Herbert, "The Flower"

At La Guardia's touch-tone, charge-a-call phone
I dial your number,
missing you,
and over & above that loss,
minutes before boarding,
I discover
I've lost a word,
can't come up with it at all,
that awful blank in my head
I know so well
as if the whole necklace of sense had snapped--
the letters of our names tumbling
on the floor,
a random alphabet,
anonymous as the faces
that surround me here,
so far from you.
I brave the heavily instruction-plated phone,
insert my card,
hear buzzes, tones,
then ringing
I pray won't be
an operator scolding
that I did things wrong.
Your daughter answers,
then you come on,
and for hello
I have to laugh
it worked!
reaching you
minutes before taking off
into a night sky
blank
as a just-washed blackboard.
It's a bad connection, your voice
tinny with static,
tiny
as make-believe,
while all around me
the drone and babble of strangers.
You ask, Can you hear me?
Yes, I say,
and then, since death
could be so soon
and you're so far away,
I say the ache inside of me all day,
I miss you.
What's more, I've lost a word
and so feel even more
at odds.
And now--through the crackling wire--
I feel your interest sparkle
like the starry sky
I wished for flying,
your love of words as keen,
as quick,
as genuine as mine.
Is there a word for a stone
you hold things to
to see if they are genuine?
And instantly, as if you stood
beside me
in the echoing terminal
and brushed your hand,
your bookmaker's artist-fingers,
every one,
upon the palette of my upper back,
you say the word
that I was searching for,
touchstone?
Touchstone! I echo,
moved to find it
true to my recollection,
Touchstone,
brushed of its dusty muteness
by your voice.
My shoulders give,
my breath comes
easefully.
Touchstone, I keep saying it over,
touchstone,
touchstone,
feeling that tears are coming,
because I recognize
this ache again
for words, for love,
a man's tongue dumb
inside my mouth--
Name it! Name it!
you're always saying.
After a year of silence,
the words,
the words are surfacing,
wanting my recollecting,
my tongue,
my breath,
on account of your loving agency
(Name it! Name it!)
as now on the phone
you pleasure me
with the word I had on the tip
of my tongue,
touchstone!
as if we were together again
on the hotel bed,
finger to finger,
palms,
chests, bellies, hips,
thighs, legs,
feet to feet,
all of the length
of our absent
imagined bodies
genuinely touching.

- Julia Alvarez

Forgive me, I couldn't put the proper spacings in.  With the waves of a flying scarf, the lines were originally written (sabi nga ni Yoda).