Bull Dancer of Crete
       

       You come for
       the plait of my hair,
       my small lifted bosom,
       still boyish hips,
       flounced fallen skirt as
       it greets the sand,
       the trim of my thighs
       and dark olive skin,
       but I --
       I have come for the bull.
       And he has come for me.

       You come for 
       the blood of my skull,
       the rake of my back,
       my torn broken breast,
       the twisted wreck
       of what's left
       crushed in the dirt,
       but I --
       I have come for the bull.
       And he has come for me.

       I have come 
       like the scent of the sea
       in my hair,
       in my skin,
       as it moves through me 
       buoyant, salt wet,
       and raises its guest
       high in its clasp,
       above sand
       above you
       and for one moment fast
       the quick black back
       and horns of this creature
       that hurtles toward me.

       And you,
       in your fat,
       your stall,
       and your grease-covered lips,
       can call and curse,
       and jaw and leer,
       you, who leave when it's done
       for home, arm in arm --

       as I vault through the air
       and my hands touch his back,
       as my feet leave the ground
       and dance on the sun,
       as the earth is my sky
       and the sky is my ground

       -- you will want one thing.

       You will want to be me.




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