The breath drawn in as the fingers of the last partner slip
Crosswise like wooden spoon on washboard
Across your hands and your body twists away and when you squeeze
Your eyes closed you forget who they were. Or —
They are engraved forever into your mind exactly as you recall them
Forever lodged in mental amber for your review
Or —
They fuzz and squirm and distort and the things that were good are good and the things that were bad are
misery
Behold the next. And perhaps this one moves better,
Or worse, or the same, or sideways like some funhouse reflection
Of the previous. Where you write an anagram on your dance card
Of the name of the last. Where you know all their steps
And you’ve danced it before, and only the feet are strange.
How many times must you kiss a new onionskin and
Ink anew the same pantomime? Perhaps
Let it be one less. Live for you
And love for you, and shift your feet for you.
Allow yourself reprieve
Lost or found edgeflowered, monarch of the wall.
Wrap your arms around yourself and breathe your own breath.
A minute, a month, a year alone,
Let it be yourself. Let you shine
In your heart there is a yearning for its own muscle. Its own blood
And once it swells with itself — once you are full of your own rhythm. When your heart beats its own time
Your chest will have room to fill with another
Love is no foodstuff, it has no prime or expiry
And yet, do not tarry
because
nobody announces last call at the dance floor