Fingerprints

We stand and then we will see how this world
Begins to form the shape of a new day
Against the far horizon of our lives.

We’ve seen the sun come rising from the dawn
Beyond those distant trees on the far hillside
And climb on up into the morning sky.

The sky will move the day around our lives
While walking all these paths and twisting lanes
Of our long lives together and alone.

We take the routes back to the comfort of home.
Away from storms, the wind and rain that falls
Out there, there is a world of shapes and forms.

Where we expect to touch its surfaces.
And we expect it to be cold and hard,
Indifferent to reaching fingertips.

Our touch will leave no traces here of us,
Except our fingerprints, like secret maps
That trace our routes on through this world by touch.

These fingerprints we leave behind, each one
Our own. A shape of shapes to trace our lives
As though they could tell all our secret stories,

But they are silent, still about too much
To be of use. And yes, I held the glass,
But they do not record your words at all,

Or how I placed the glass down carefully
Before I walked away from your small room
And without looking back while thinking only

About your lipstick, A trace left behind
On the rim of your empty glass you placed
So carelessly so very close to mine

Before you followed me all down along
Your shadowed hallway to your door and out.
I wanted to go back and steal that glass,

To have some small reminder and some proof,
Of your lips, while I wondered if you smiled
When you wiped my fingerprints from that glass.