Conchitina Cruz

Address to the body in the room

Let the music appease the unnerved skin, the skin about to squander
its secrets.
Let it seal the pores shut. Let the brooding notes instruct.
You are here. Your hair
still
aswarm with digressionsmidday heat, gate
unnumbered and ajar,
limbs of trees. Let them slip off the strands.
Let them break into pieces indistinguishable
from
the monosyllables on the floor.
There. On your neck, the litany of quick breaths.
There, the wayward commute from your tongue
to your stomach. You are here.
Dismantle the hours, the vowels,
the tangled paths. Discard the fingers that
elsewhere
held and lingered,
the shorthand of saliva and sweat, discard the mouth
that elsewhere browsed and took in and swallowed
Dissolve the day that led to this instant lodged in
your throat.
You are here.
Compose yourself accordingly.
And dance with the one you married.