Show Me

Your hands. They'll know
if I look in your eyes so I strain
not to. Around this table the four of us
play our best poker faces. It's hard
to look at my date. He tweezer-pinches
his cake and his nose ring looks like a drip
so I turn

toward you and startle that little sculptor
girl whose fingernails, pearly pills,
heave you into poses with hands so sure
she'll catch every bouquet. I bend her
over the table until she looks
like her mother who is home, now, in a chair
whose back is draped and bowed like a flower girl.
Just July and she's shouting into the Season's Greetings
letter, "My daughter is getting married!"

Across our table I see where your rings will go.
The waitress brings my scotch, your tea,
something for them. When she passes, her hand
touches your shoulder and you flip
your tie behind your neck. Your silence hangs
so I laugh a reason to circle the table and touch
your back. Your face. You look like a woman
whose bag I massaged in a grocery store

when I was young. She was not my mother.
A deck of cards
and we could be partners.
Your hand. Show.








Mulberry Tree Test

To test you against other men
I order you to rest under the mulberry tree
then baste you with a deep merlot
and wait

while sensual man rushes to rise
above the red nicely another man
more like your father perhaps
floats in religion and poor eyesight

and as puddles form in saucers
on your ankles and neck
I think of uncommunicative Pyramus
startled by a lioness
sure to miss the signs of slaughter
under the mulberry tree

and passionate Thisbe
who tasted the brown red flow
of together forever thus ending
her first encounter beyond the wall
of her father's house where the berries
grow small by comparison

I brush a crushed berry from my knee
and mouth the stain then turn
to tell you not to blink
or the wine will drip
but your back is white and dry
and you are running.








Mother Dances Too

Chasse

Forget that you knew she needed water
to feel that fine lift of weightlessness.
Ignore that you knew how much she wanted food
to stop chasing her. You had your own obsessions.

Soutenu

Know that you supported her
and that it wasn't you who urged the impossible.
Push the ground away with your legs
was something you both heard, both tried.

Pas de chat

Urge her to leave messes and footprints
and not just applause. Look for portentous patterns
on her wrists. Next time, understand what she means
when she says she'll stop at nothing.

Releve

She's nearly well now, feel relieved.
Notice her nails are growing and her hair falls out
less. Rearrange her room. Start with that poster
"If your feet are your life
then your life just got a whole lot better."

Plie

Convince yourself of the present. Forget
how others lie, then remain unchanged. Imagine,
then forget, the stiffness in her back as she bends
to add her name to the school lunch list.

Coupe

Quit gnawing your fingernails and notice hers.
Discover something about yourself as you help
free her fingers from her past. Look for symmetry
only when she smiles and when you hug her,
convince yourself that her ribs are less like knives.