Grass Dance

Subtle lesions of distrust

Drain us like a mine-stained rill,

Maculate us both. You trust me less.

Panicked now, I hemorrhage words

And try and cauterize your fears with heat.

A corpulence of words outweighs me.

I lapse into a cold, aphasic dance.

But we’ve become the sum of countless convalescences.

Our words attenuate to chants and ancient voices.

And like the pintid aborigine, we learn to dance

And sex as one, speak in tongues, and love across the gulf of selves.

— Bill Schubart 1991