When the Tango Plays (2013)

With many thanks to J. L. for her contributions to this poem.

When the tango plays, the world is swift compressed
To a chilled intake of breath, the sigh of steel
On ice, the rush of blood, and in your breast
The pulsing beat, a rhythm that you feel

In every cell.  As true as can be true
Is this frozen sheet, this song, the electric space
The music fills between the two of you
When the tango plays, and you wait in close embrace.

Now skate!  And feel the wind rush through your hair
Like a tempest, loosed by some primordial god
When the world still moved with magic, charms and prayer,
When the soul was with itself still overawed.

Now skate!  And feel the edges of your blades
Engrave the ice with power, your bodies reach,
Compress, explode, relax: in rainbow shades
Of color you move – poetry without speech.

When the tango plays it takes you out of time
To realms of gold, where music is the air,
Where bodies move as if their limbs were rhyme,
And speak a language passionate and rare;

To realms where all is amplified, and felt
Intensely, synaesthetically as one –
Now skate!  And feel your separate bodies melt
While the tango plays: the dance has just begun.