Indian Female Dancer/ Hannah Hoch
If , with head tossed back,
I see through a creamy, half closed eye
you, tall friend, unimaginable mirror,
then nothing is settled, and the
crown of forks and knives
that has adorned my head
since the day of your first smile
announces its domestic turn
in litanies of a secret sorrow.
And though I would like to claim
that I cannot be owned,
It is a fantasy
that leaves me
with a woodenness
that is nearly half my head.
A singular madness
in the presence of so many dead,
who will never know the turn
from a shudder
to discernment
