In Touch by Mario Petrucci

In Touch*

That ocean divides. Yet the yeasts on my toes

have stowed away on yours – at the heel

of a day crammed with doings, shoe-snug,

they waft up to you our distinctive tang.

There’s a suspicion in the breath I catch

single-handed, just after brushing my teeth,

of that must my tongue first muscled in on

when our kissing strayed across the Channel

and a hybrid gas hibernates in my warp

of sheets, in my nightclothes – a smell that’s

somewhere between us, nuzzling to my body

warmth, or nosing the weft of denim that

spanned four shoulders of our lumbering

golem through hugger-mugger November nights.

Those secret hordes make us a common host:

cling, spawn, multiply in and under these skins –

our bodies soft continents.

From: Flowers of Sulphur (Enitharmon Press, 2007)
by Mario Petrucci

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Critique

In Touch reads as a modern rhetoric on the ancient idea of eros. The title suggests that although a lover can be aware of their own feelings, there is an outside force which cannot be controlled; a force creates uncertainty and separatism.

From the opening line of That ocean divides the reader is immediately flung into the paranoid and bitter recesses of passionate love;

That ocean divides. Yet the yeasts on my toes

Have stowed away on yours – at the heel

of a day crammed with doings, shoe snug

They waft up to you our distinctive tang.

Their union is looked upon with familiarity (our and shoe snug) yet repulsion (distinctive tang) hope (Yet the yeast...) and insecurity (that, on yours, at the heel). Like the satire of Petronius, Petrucci uses a private subject to catapult us into the situation with a tinge of recoil and disgust which echo the emotions of the speaker.

The conflicting emotions of eros are clear, with guilt linked to act of intercourse with the warp of sheets. The use of four shoulders is reminiscent of the derogatory term a beast with two backs, and yet he looks fondly upon nuzzling to my body warmth and their past lumbering golem. The word golem increases the sense of displacement and artificiality.

The speaker’s position in the relationship is uncertain; there’s a suspicion in the breath I catch. Initially in control (that must my tongue first muscled in on) the speaker feels that he is now trapped in a love that is crammed like a hybrid gas, dominated by his lover and his feelings;

Those secret hordes make us a common host:

Cling, spawn, multiply in and under these skins –

The speaker’s journey is clearly depicted; the poem begins with a statement of separateness (That ocean divides, I catch single handed), but as the poem flows past remembrances of hugger mugger November nights, the speaker comes to the realisation that love still exists somewhere between us in our bodies soft continents.

As the tenses change from past to present to future, the simple two line stanzas reflect the movement of the relationship and hope for its future, whilst the broken and disjointed sentence structure further depict the laws governing the common host of erotic love.

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*Reproduced with kind permission from Mario Petrucci