The Dancer 

The days pronounce and diminish—

the subtle magnetism of the coffee table—

this was the afternoon light we spoke of.  

How we used to appease the line 

drawn by skin from which this piece was made.

Entire realms could be filled with the words 

I don’t speak. Naked, sputtering, indelible 

terms reveal themselves—by virtue they should not  

be shared. I discern in the songs I sang when 

I was Beauty—the sounds of spheres

turning within me—many possible flowers. 

I choose to believe the plum also prays 

for more faculties with which to love You. 

What is faith without frenzy? Without sacrifice 

of the animal? How dangerous is this quest

to see everything? My Spirit—pallid, 

provincial—will father no genre and still 

there is a silence behind the screen 

of my awareness—a constant battle 

of like and dislike—translucent interfaces 

and fields of static containing: alder grove, 

white river, cormorant—evidence of one 

Being only: harmony, figuration, You.