tango 2

dance with no meaning

turn, words, turn, turn; bend

my hand on my cheek into her hand; un-rend

my woken world from her smooth dream realm;

unfurl in me that calling satin thing

that, like the inside of a shell, beaten, spent

into silk by waves and the crawling life it held,

best cradles the best thing it held.

limping like the relief map of a river's bend,

my words but half-recall the life that rent

itself from mine, standing counterdistinct, realmed

itself within itself, a stone thing

against which the water turns, spent

like words. therefore softness housed a never-spent

memory, softness turned her cheek to mine and held

my hand to it--softness blends

her flesh into mine--softness rends

a sigh from the body's wet dark realm--

softness a pulsing sweet blanketing thing.

words, turn, turn me into her thing,

turn this shell to a spent

casing, turn the memory that held

to her to flesh, to her flesh, bend

me to her, rend

the stone from my side. The realm

of this wish repeats, becomes the realm

of the figures of the dance, the soft intertwining

of my cheek with hers a motion already spent

over and over, the turn of my hand to hers held

already to a cheek my words have bent

to create, un-rent,

myself in her--let her never rend

herself from the realm

of me. let the thing

remain we, we, resplendent,

sans split, the rock that once held

itself so to itself now awash in the un-riven riverbed...

a bent wish,

a command rent

from itself--in what realm

could the thing

of me spend

itself in her?

i warp, held

against her. like fresh wood, i bend--

like words, like words, i bend.