hands reach where eyes cannot
into the touching air

eyes closed
hands touch
the diamond of the sun
laced fingers
textured cloth and soil

while eyes seek to
solve problems
find answers
tell stories

flesh hums
flesh dances
flesh is story

I dance
eyes closed
and slowly
the ones inside
the ones behind
the ones who make me
their eyes open
dimly
like upon waking,
blurring into awareness

or quickly
with an absolute knowing
with a force of love
and self respect
and directed accounting

I see you, they say
You are the one
who is response-able
You are the one
who must hold
to the truth not visible
the truth that stands before you
naked
the truth that comes
when your eyes close
and your flesh awakes

the truth of your awakened flesh

III
We dance
toes sink into sand
We dance
legs covered in hair
We dance
palms of feet scoop dirt
arching from bone to bone
We dance
muscle to muscle
rooting into mother
time outside time
We dance
thighs, calves
ropey and curving
We dance
full and aching and numb
We dance
knees with the pain of time
We dance
pelvis the juncture of sex and digestion
We dance
the receiving bowl
pouring relationship of sky to earth

We dance
grounding the pounding of
breath and heart
We dance
belly rolling soft
We dance
full of beings
whose knowing
We dance
fulminates and culminates
culminates and fulminates
into hidden thoughts
We dance
fingers calloused and dry
and aching cold
We dance
weave light and water and earth
into daily patterns of being
We dance
shoulder rainbows of connection
We dance
tendon and ligament
and stripes of muscle music
We dance
reach and curl into embrace after embrace
We dance
long bones making lines upon lines upon lines
toward the skull

We dance
round and notched
expressing,
receiving,
placing
ego into this world

We dance
with each shift of the eyebrow

We dance
and tilt of the head

We dance
and tone of the voice

We dance
sensing into the me-not-me space between us

as we dance

flesh awakens
and flesh knows no argument
there is awakened flesh
or there is darkness

(the darkness of forgetting
not trusting
rushing
believing
wanting
something other
than what is

the darkness of
remembered selves
when light came from someplace else
and concern
for distorted smiles
empty spaces
turned love
into the corset of compliance
squeezing breath and blood
until life had no more space to light)

eyes closed
with practice
it becomes easy
to let the diamond mind fill the
crystalline earth of body
of bone and blood
of muscle and nerve

flesh then knows
what earth and sun and stars know
they are not separate
they are the forever becoming
of being
let the light fall through the flesh
and beam from every fluid cell of you

eyes closed
you see the beaming world

eyes open
let the world see
the naked
fluid
crystal
light
beam
dancing
truth
of you

and they say,
the ones inside
the ones behind
the ones who make me

they say,
I am the one responsible
to all this naked truth
to all this naked truth
all this naked truth

eyes closed-
I dance

eyes open-
We dance
this story
of awakened flesh