Metanoia

Unisided Humanity

          Unisided humanity

He slips into the room, air dead between us.
I am the enemy -- Adult authority incapacitated
by his silence. My nails scrape the surface of
his smooth, soul-taut skin. He cringes, curls
tightly, hides his countenance within.

I try to walk around him only to discover no features,
no face. He turns his back. I sidle round his side,
trying to confront the face I cannot see. Only, I
discover, no face is turned from me. It is still
his back, each side I step to see. Always his back.

Unisided humanity tears and gnashes with teeth turned inward.
Anger rips inner flesh to shreds; coagulated drops grind
through pores drawn tight across his neck, mimicking defiance.
He dare not give way to fear as his selfhood is devoured, teeth
gnawing on his bones, larynx stifled by skin stretched tightly
across his back, across his back, his endless back.

I continue to circle, like a vulture dances around his prey,
certain of impending death. The endless back mocks me,
mesmerizes me, straddling my own meaningless side to side.
I slide to the floor, slumped forward in my helplessness.




Heat draws me up, flush with his back behind my own; back to
back, supporting one another, we brace our incompleteness
with the backbone of the other. Arms swing wide, hands lace
together. We slowly stand and swing around,
a dance unlike the other.

Ducking under our braced arms, I look into his eyes.