Trace

The body’s pose

and the poem’s body

are at attention.

Breath refines

twin forms

to a lightness,

flesh that God

poured into an

imagined form

now distilled

in the poem,

the line placing

its seed

in the body’s

slow steps into

the inner labyrinth

until

the physical

twist and turn,

bend and reach

to shape

the spirit

and its expression

are nothing—

a swiftly vanishing

sweetness.