a subtle sweep: your arm
kissed mine, like when a sable
brush greets white canvas.

Shoestrings of intrigue
draw across the footlights.
They�re forming loops.

A tremor builds from upturned
big toes, through wetlands,
and gray roots.

Language vanishes from my
chest and stomp thru
the corridor of my throat.

Words needing to unwind,
collapse in my head,
as if it were a cot.

Then they rise to slip and slide
on a young girl�s
longstanding bathmat.

In cluttered nervousness,
a phrase finally falls
to an untidy heap.

Plucky, your arm is:
goodnight it tenders

I get it,
you say.

You get it.
Got it.
Get it.
Got it.

A Gutsy night it is.




�2007 by Yolanda Calderon-Horn