Lost Ellen

You are cavitating, spinning outward,

A blade without purchase, carving at a vacuum.

I dance to your heartbeat and breathing.

Your hands are on me, contiguous and light, like staghorn fronds.

I taste you, a pale tang of lime

And skate around the room alone, blue with hoar frost, lust and rime.

I weep prostatic tears, viscous, inappropriate and thrilling.

Who will we be when we give up these stones, this ice and distance.

                      –Bill Schubart, Fall 1990