A secret world turns in us. Your fingers cruise the rotunda. You handle your own canoe in water. I hear your loud heart thumping under my hand. listen to my face. Stay with me. I move around in the recurring circle that is my absence. Feel the shape. Feel how it must be in here where I sway. Your neck and breasts are round. So are our teacups. They are necessarily shaped this way. White, silver, and gold -- the dark and light colors of our wholeness are here in the shadows around us. Your mouth, I know your lips. Your hands, I know your fingers. I feel you moving all through these words. From inside of me you are speaking, giving shape to my thoughts. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IMAGES: 4 by RICHARD ALDINGTON THE IDEAL GENERAL by ARCHILOCHUS THE CLOUDS: SONG [OR CHORUS] OF THE CLOUDS by ARISTOPHANES THE ADVANCE GUARD by BERTON BRALEY AN ELEGY OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH; LAST POEM, ROME, MAY, 1861 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |