Skin remembers how long the years grow br when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel br of singleness, feather lost from the tail br of a bird, swirling onto a step, br swept away by someone who never saw br it was a feather. Skin ate, walked, br slept by itself, knew how to raise a br see-you-later hand. But skin felt br it was never seen, never known as br a land on the map, nose like a city, br hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque br and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope. br br Skin had hope, that's what skin does. br Heals over the scarred place, makes a road. br Love means you breathe in two countries. br And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass, br deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own. br Even now, when skin is not alone, br it remembers being alone and thanks something larger br that there are travelers, that people go places br larger than themselves.