By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
"The Touch" holds heaven and hell inside the body while blood, Pacific light, and the impossible act of laying a hand on her become indistinguishable from war.
The poem is built out of divided interiors: brain against heart, aqua against blood, desire against prohibition. Glancing both ways gives the moment the feel of a crossing or a checkpoint, not a free encounter. By the end, withheld touch is not just personal restraint but part of a larger violence already surrounding them.
'The Touch' splits the body against itself -- 'Your brain filled / with Heaven / Your heart filled / with Hell' -- and pairs remembered 'blood / all over a spot / in the Pacific' with 'just aqua too'. After 'glancing / both ways' like a man at a checkpoint, the speaker knows 'I could never / lay my hand on her', because the withheld touch is bound up with the same violence: 'that would be war, / as well'.