Snow Dance

For Eunelle in Nashville

Snow Dance

Their dance is flesh to flesh:
         Their bodies touch
                   A heartbeat from oblivion,
         From perdition half as much.

And I a dancer, too,
         Watch quietly as though
                   The cadence that I see
         Were more than falling snow,

And you were more than hungry thoughts
         Six hundred miles away,
                   And I had one less empty wish
         And one less empty day.

Still, winter comes on stronger now,
         No matter what my pain,
                   And snow once white and beautiful
         Is cold now and profane.

And, see, I dance a silent dance
         That no one else can do,
                   A lonely dance made lonelier
         Six hundred miles from you.

But soon my legs grow weary
         As the wind begins to weep
                   The bitterness I dream
         While fitfully I sleep,

Hoping that tomorrow comes
         With daylight just begun,
         With winter wooed and won.