I

I confuse slowing down

and taking my time.

 

the time I take is

mine–

 

time slowed down

is for someone else.

 

I won’t let myself alone.

There are always two of us.

 

II

We move forward bodily

through time.

 

No looking back

will give us

 

the velocity

of forward–

 

if poetry

can slow time down,

 

or rather

make time take its time

 

then dancing is

making time catch up with my body

 

I wonder sometimes, afterward– 

did I live at all?

 

III

I dance with my face

which carries skittering thoughts

 

when they are thrown up

above my body

 

and forget that

my heart beats time.

 

I try to build

something

 

out of the face-muscles

but they don’t have enough

 

dimension, they shuffle

like a deck of cards

 

and fall in a loose pile

my voice pleading–

 

I know a trick

pick a card, any card.

 

IV

a boy almost died

under a train

with his arm

pinned within

the wheel

 

V

Sometimes when I write my

neck curls and my

 

head droops like it’s been snipped,

and I ask

 

if my smile is a lid for

things.

 

My hand is no charm,

it holds truth.

 

VI

Body eating air

as its meat,

 

lunging, like the ones

who tore hearts out

 

and placed them in bowls

for raingods–

 

we want

a dreamanswering dance.

 

VII

I carve out a jungle

toward cliffs and ocean

 

But the uneven shore

brings salt

 

and no truth, except for hands,

and eyes, mirrors.

 

VIII

where is the word?

when I find it again

 

I will trace its shadow

with my limbs

 

until it becomes a tree,

the ground rich and frothing

 

the shapelessness

making everything waver, connected

 

then

harden again,

recreated