Study for the World's Body.(Poem)

 
STUDY FOR THE WORLD'S BODY 
(after the painting by R.B. Kitaj) 
 
   It only looks like an embrace 
   when frozen. In truth it is 
 
   a dance; unaccompanied and slow. 
   This house feels abandoned. How 
 
   a couple came to be here in an upstairs 
   room (nothing through the glass 
 
   but open sky), is immaterial. 
   The point is, they cannot tell 
 
   what has interrupted them, 
   some sound outside their room 
 
   has made him jump and swivel. 
   Perhaps a weightless footfall, 
 
   a ventriloquist's trick, a voice 
   thrown, a voice cut loose 
 
   and trapped in its own simple 
   utterance. The stripped walls 
 
   of this house have made an aural 
   hall of mirrors, so a single 
 
   board creak is a possible epiphany, ...