The Abundance of Nothing: Poems

The End of My Career in Dance

6 The End of My Career in Dance What I have in my head is a wail of words that sometimes makes sense if I can hold on to their wildness long enough to tell you how the air around your face in the half-light Texas evening shone. The only way around the truth is to lie. I am nothing without you, should be more difficult to say, or it must mean that there’s some riff in the flow of how things ought to be, some disruption that needs mending with a kiss, followed by a thousand more kisses, and a light only eyes can share across the distance named longing. There were witnesses to this, including angels, so you don’t have to take my word alone. There’s love, and then there’s nothing, and it took my breath away like a hand around my throat, or like a pistol pressed to my head, is how I remember it. ...