NOTHING COULD TOUCH US

BY JACOB SOPHER

The NEAR and FAR cards were printed by Cumbersome Multiples Press on a 1928 Chandler & Price letterpress using antique wooden type. PonyXpress writers wrote a response to the word on the cover. The cards were passed to the next writers and they used the prompt to write on the back.

We were young once
Wild and free
Unbroken and full of grace
We filled our worlds
With laughter
And nothing could touch us

Our sins were private matters
Whispered to a priest
Not scarlet letters printed on
Newspaper pages and shaped
Like steel shackles about our wrists
We were free and unknown
And nothing could touch us

We had survived the hells
Of our childhoods
We were all alive and well
In countless revelers we
Danced in defiance of
Responsibility, gods, support groups
Even love itself
And nothing could touch us

Drifting in the desert
Split seconds from disaster
Driving to the castle by the sea
The ocean waves lap the shore
By my one side and you
My beauty on the other
Read Angela’s Ashes out loud
From the paperback
We were young once
And nothing could touch us | JS