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