by Jack Hirschman for Pearl Ubungen
Trance Dancer
I’ve been translating
from voodoo’s language
Drumbeats to feed your feet
The last time
before little Salvatore
I went back to the floor
where you whirled out
your ode to the art
of ultimate innocence
and I swept
the echoes embedded
in the wood
into my arms,
soul – fetishist
that I am.
Trance Dancer
with whom I share
a reciproleap of rainbows
from poor Port-au-Prince
to Hanoi
to the slums of Manila
to the Tenderloin.
Tanbou Tanbou
bat pou dans la.
Drumbeats
to feed your feet.