Can I reconcile this animal’s body with a human shadow?
I wanted to whisper perfect truths, to halt my fingertips,
but I had not been tender before love, and love showed me
that I would not be tender after. Darling, which one of us
will play the animal tonight? Which one will howl?
It’s true, all sex is bestiality, all men are not men,
but let’s dance anyway; let’s pretend we don’t care.
It doesn’t matter that we have forgotten the steps,
it doesn’t matter that our smiles display only bone,
it doesn’t even matter that the music stopped long ago.
This emptiness, so deep it seems to be alive,
insists that just to break the animal silence,
just to touch the bare walls of a self, is enough.
Paul Adler
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/paramour-2/
