The Contortionist

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A dialogue between Body and Shadow —

Because I am given form I can form it, like paper in the hands of the origamist, dough in the hands

          of the kuehmaker.

Because once, I sought to fill the breach in the light.

But I want to elicit something, I want nothing less than pure feeling.

I want to know, what does it feel like, wind on the cheeks? Honeysuckle in wind? What does it feel like, all this hurt?

Though I comport myself, I can’t hide. I turn toward Love with all my faces bright, arrayed in

          symmetry.

Before form was form there was the mold, before that the mold of the mold.

No matter which direction I take, always the boundary I come up against, I push at it each time,

          once cracked will I give, spill forth goldly as yolk?

I, for my part, am like a library containing all the words of the world. I am the warden, and marginalia.

When the time comes I will be a star in Spanx, dizzying to the huzzahs of the crowd.

When you fall, my body, I will catch you with my hands, all hundreds of them.