Cypress was air. She felt so good. It was dark and someone was lying next to her. Someone’s thigh, damp and heavy across her ass. She was warm; felt so good. She giggled, getting together where she was, who was this, why so good. Here she was herself again. She was her own mystery and this nice, wandering body was another thing to find out. Cypress crawled out from the legs and remembered Leroy. “Yes, this is Leroy. I was dancin’ and this is Leroy.”

Cypress ran her hands over his back, not a long back, but sturdy with wiry hairs growing up from the bottom. Thighs covered with masses of slight nappy curls, and funny calves like piano sticks with all the muscle bunched up near the knee. There was a mole on his right ankle. Some kind of birthmark where his ass rounded under. Cypress couldn’t believe she was enjoying looking at a man, having such a good time. She turned him over softly, coaxing him.

“It’s just me, Cypress.”

And he went on sleeping and Cypress looked and kissed and giggled and touched. She sat over Leroy for ages, thinking about Idrina, fascinated with Leroy, wondering about herself.

He was so beautiful, and he woke up. They were silent, letting visions and nakedness speak. Leroy stared at Cypress the same way she had traced every line of his body. There was air. There was Roscoe Mitchell wild. There was Aramide, Halifu, all the dancers of the world. Energy between them was maddening. There were tongues and fingers, lips holding. As Leroy moved into her, Cypress plunged to the edge of the rainbow.

She left her address on the edge of a paper towel on the foot of the bed. It was day. It was time to dance, no matter what. . . .

braided lady of subway scents & magic
rings in nose & wrists/ music in the style of the islands
lacin the trains dancin in the tunnels of hades
ka-jungle-jingle-ka-jungle juju
in damp downtown nights of love/ the secrets of muscles
used
lights cajolin the tense spring of calves jumpin/ space
taken by the ripplin womanness of yr back/
do as you please/ african lady roamin los campos
of the lower east side/ caresses you with fried plantains
& drummers stealin corners for the winds to lift you to the scant sun’s ray/ lyric lady/ dance the original
dance
the original aboriginal dance of all time/ challenge the
contradiction of perfected pirouette with the sly knowin
of hips that do-right/ stretch till all the stars n sands
of all our lands abandoned/ mingle in the wet heat/
sweat & grow warm/ must
be she the original aboriginal dancin girl.