Chaos theory would have us believe that
the gathered sheets on even this small bed are infinitely long.

If this is true, then the forgotten shirt
and the rolled blazer go on and on forever.

The palms of our hands and feet can never have enough said about them.
The same holds for the creases that work our elbows and wrists.

My fingertips catch on your face about your eyes and forehead
in the corners of your open mouth and along the whorls of your ears.

The folds of our intestines and brains can stretch for miles,
in the one a forest of hairs

and in the other, carefully unwadded and smoothed out,
small little pieces of colored paper.

____

This is a Norway poem, written in Tromsø on avisit after a year's absence.