The Full Sense

I’m half known,
like professional news anchors, with
only their voice and noise
remembered, sometimes (with luck)
their faces. But never their names.

I’m half scented,
like unsold withering tulips at the mall,
waiting for city butterflies to drop by,
crossbreeding them with
smudge and progress.
Symmetrical wing patterns, with pollens
unevenly furnished on the legs.

I’m half visible,
like sweating aged women selling raffle
tickets in the deep noon heat:
fake pretty faces masking
genuine ugly solitude. Pity
is costly. We care more about our sticky
summer bodies than the wrinkles on
their uneasy autumn skin.

I’m half tasted,
like underheated chicken tandoori,
a bite of cold with
two bites of warmth,
trapped in a loaf of meat that
should not be called food.

I’m half touched.
A pair of arms always extends
from behind, holding my chest, as if
we’re ready to skydive from the ground
level. Not venturing downwards, but
forwards. The horizontal threatens me
more than the vertical. As-if is the way you
used to touch me. And others. For if
you touch me from the front, you’d be
appalled by a different image reflected in
my beautiful brown pupils.

I’m half past,
half present.
And my future is
half lived,
half predicted.
Way past knowability.
They live their lives with senses
half shut, half unborn.
I fully feel,
turn fully maudlin.
I see images with my ears
and hear the voice with my hands.
Quite mixed up, but all make sense.
Senses spread out and
the self dwindled,
as everything that exists
has to be felt,
in the body.
Such as
a spare body.