Natalie E. Illum

Time, Signature

Our hands are similar in callus and age. 
Your dexterity and my grip. Stronger than most 

artists or wise men. We've held on all these years, pinky swore and privately entered each other, thumb and forefinger. Me sliding into your wedding band. You forgetting how to play guitar, but not piano. So play me. Whisper my name like the minor chord in a coda, except I'm not. I am more Boa than Beethoven. 

I clutch you the same way I do a pen; 
how I would hold a masterpiece; deliberately. 
And I wait for you the same way 
the symphony waits for the audible 
gasp before the rush of applause. And we ride 
that cacophony together; 

as lovers have always done. Rubbing one sound into the other. The force of a violin
string 
can break a finger. But the quartet will keep playing. 
What hymn did they play when the Titanic was sinking? Tomorrow may be what drowns us. I know 
some souls are like icebergs. There are sharks 
swimming in our bodies; always. But 
our hands are the only lifeboat that will save us, so hold on, tight.

Natalie E. Illum is a poet, singer, and disability activist living in Washington, DC. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks: On Writer’s Block and Acrobats (2006), and Ground Lover (2004). Illum competed on the National Poetry Slam circuit for five years and was the 2013 Beltway Grand Slam Champion. Illum was a founding board member of mothertongue, a women’s performance series that lasted 15 years, and she was selected as a writer-in-residence at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School in Petersburg, Virginia.