To Karin: The 'Touch Me'

It looked just like a coaster— a membrane of soft plastic, yellow, green and cobalt blue, the colors swirling at your touch, like it could feel something too. I did not know ‘til later, that it also reflected you. I thought it just a trinket, a trick of vinyl and hue, given not with coy delight, but offered straight and true. It changed when touched (just like a heart) and maybe so did you. Like heat that leaves no mark, you slipped across my skin— a shimmer, then a fading, too fleeting to box in. You moved like light through water, and left me changed again, before the stillness flowed. I no longer chase the shimmer, or try to name its shade. Some things are meant to vanish, but not before they stain. You left no mark I can point to— only the ache that still remains when I remember you.