When I met you and you held out
your hand, something in your movement reminded me
of cranes, their feathers flared, your neck’s angle of interest,
and I remembered how Theseus instituted the crane dance
at Delos. . .
And yet what does all this mean, except at
your touch, I was already shedding my skin; you were slipping
out of your dress of feathers, stepping out
of your skin of the crane,
no longer looking back, but trolling
for a face made of water . . .
and so I slipped out of my skin
of the doomed, I slipped out of the realm
of the man, I was suddenly devoid of stories, I was naked
as a girl dancing at no altar, bearing no weight, ahistorical
as a field of flowers, where every entrance
so predates language, all that I could say was human,
my body opening to your hand.
And yet, still I was being hunted.