“I find in life we get what we need most when we need it most.” Julie – The Tango Room
1
It proved difficult
to find. Three times
I passed on foot
before the door
appeared set back
surrounded by
an ivy covered
wall. Entering,
I beheld
an angel.
2
“We try to decorate,” she said.
“Saturday nights we have a social
gathering. We dress. It really is
a family.”
Yet, if every wall were barren,
every color drab,
the atmosphere, the
expectancy of ecstasy
in motion would be here.
The room,
this empty room
exuded promise.
“Last weekend,” she said,
“we had eighty people.”
3
“Not the legs. Not the arms,”
he said.
“With your body.
So.
Is this clear?”
Then he began.
Always with the
understated elegance of
a gentleman,
un gentilhombre
one might say.
“You see, just so.”
Teaching with a
fine internal
line of rhythm,
a graceful strength
contained within a
crisply tailored shirt,
a pair of pleated slacks
and soft grey dancing
shoes. His voice
quietly preceding.
“Again please with
the music.”
Without show
or pretense,
only by the power
of perfection,
this teacher
moves you.
4
Humiliation
is your first partner.
Not the partner of your
dreams, she who comes
quietly smiling, arms extended
to enfold, a luscious scent,
embracing with her arms.
Not yet.
There she stands,
before you and she says,
“You do not know what to do.”
“You do not know how to move.”
“You move poorly. You cannot
please me. I am impatient
to be pleased. I am impatient
with you. Yet try to please me.
You are here to try.
Move slowly, fool, even as you
approach me, because
you do not know how to move.”
5
Take her in your arms.
Crush her.
Grind her to dust.
Strike her with a blow
she does not feel.
So when alone,
remembering,
she thrills.
6
Feet know so much,
so eloquent, so quick.
Stepping intricately in
complete enunciation
of the dance. Feet
know their place,
between each other, side
by side, stepping
then stopping still
in grace. Feet
pronounce the rhythm,
feel the pulse
of this the dance in
which feet are
best forgotten,
as when a sly
woman in cunning poise
slides her whole body
up her partner.
7
Red shoes,
flashing through
your partner’s lead.
Red shoes, intricately,
effortlessly, tantalizingly
near me.
Red shoes, please,
turn this way.
Upon your heels.
Upon your toes.
Upon my soul.
8
Dreamers.
They seem to be
dreamers. Dancing
in a dream. He dreams
of her. She dreams
of him. They dream
of others.
Dancing, they dream
the endless dream
of lovers.
9
Eyes closed,
they hold
each other close.
So very close.
These bodies
spiral
as smoke
might move.
Convoluted,
languid and
slow, but no.
Quicker now
and quickly the
rapture.
10
There are no shadows
in a darkened room.
You be mine, my shadow,
part of me, but free
to flow away.
Now return.
There is no
darkness in the light
of our embrace.
Shadow, face to face
we flow together in
this tender trance of life.
There are no shadows
in a darkened room.
Be mine.
11
Why these mirrors?
Isn’t it enough to
feel you, catch
your scent? Sense
the tracery of your hair?
Possess you these
few moments?
Must we see ourselves
as others see us?
Why must these mirrors
be, when there is only
you and me?
12
Upon my shoulder
you place your hand.
No maiden ever offered
herself more tenderly
within a lover’s grasp,
or placed herself
upon the altar
of his will more gracefully.
My dear,
you make me
a very important
man.
&