From A NIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR: Poems by Jewel. Copyright (c) 1998 by Jewel Kilcher Reprinted by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. ----- I Miss Your Touch I miss your touch all taciturn like the slow migration of birds nesting momentarily upon my breast then lifting silver and quick-- sabotaging the landscape with their absence my skin silent without their song a thirsty pool of patient flesh ----- Insecurity you don't call I check again I become uneasy-- is this a frame? Suddenly I'm not so sure I check my sources each conversation becomes a crumb how easily I'm led how stupid I've been to believe you could be loving me you who can not be seduced by anything other than the temperance of need each one facilitating the next and suddenly I see my place the phone rings you say hello but I don't believe you ----- I Say to You Idols I say to you idols of carefully studied disillusionment And you worshipers who find beauty in only fallen things that the greatest Grace we can aspire to is the strength to see the wounded walk with the forgotten and pull ourselves from the screaming blood of our losses to fight on undaunted all the more ----- It Has Been Long It has been long and Bony since your willing ways since those thirstful days of summer nights and Burning Beds ----- As a Child I Walked As a child I walked with noisy fingers along the hemline of so many meadows back home Green fabric stretched out shy earth shock of sky I'd sit on logs like pulpits listen to the sermon of sparrows and find god in Simplicity there amongst the dandelion and thorn ----- I Am Not From Here I am not from here, my hair smells of the wind and is full of constellations and I move about this world with a healthy disbelief and approach my days and my work with vaporous consequence a touch that is translucent but can violate stone