Touch ( A Poem )

I do not fear many things
I don't fear much
Not spiders
Or snakes
Or sharks
Or things mythological and such
But
I do fear touch

The shaking of hands
With new acquaintance in school assigned seating
Whose future importance imparts no hints in the meeting
Or might not ever
Assuming I even took up on the endeavor
To learn of the individual
Past the nervous greeting

Knuckle bumping with friends
Whose idea of fun believed the ends
Justified the means

The brushes of genius

The texture of adventure

The warmth
Of hand-in-hand walks
Tight embraces
After youthful ( existential ) talks

Cupping the waist
And lifting the hand
Twisting
In an insignificant place
Prom
Homecoming
My muse and her hourglass
Falling sand
Losing time
Lost in the sway
Of partner's grace

I fear when it happens
Just as much as I feel when it happens...
The contact
The touch
Because it soon must go
And of where the destination is
I will never know
These tethers of things past
That I can never reconnect
With all the things I
Silently
Under cloak of night
Somberly recollect

I fear
That I will live all my elderly years
In bittersweet retrospect
Alone and a widower
Aching
For my wife
For my life
Or for even something as simple
As a dinky
Little
Touch
That I can only experience without fear once it is far too late