An Apparition

Stumbling up the six flights of stairs to my tiny apartment, past midnight, past feeling, stumbling not because of that last glass of champagne, but because--as usual--I'm running on mostly nerves, far too little sleep, too little food and a fear of staying still. Through the door and I fumble for the light switch, my gloved fingers searching, sliding, connecting. The sudden light dazzles my nighttime eyes and through the brightness I see an apparition confronting me at the end of the hallway. High heels, impossibly long legs, a short smoke colored dress clinging to a slender frame, she moves nearer studying me, ignoring the cavalier slide of the dress as it reveals one pale gleaming white shoulder. A shining nimbus of dark hair frames a small, pale face too angular for beauty with sly grey shadow-smudged eyes, prominent cheekbones, and sulky red lips. I watch her and wonder why she so often seems such a stranger, there on the other side of the glass. She looks too tired for twenty-five, worldly and cynical like a picture in a magazine or one of those shadows that this city produces: an illusion that men dream of and small-town girls wish to be. The difficulty with such pictures, such shadows, is that they are just that--mere illusions, insubstantial as dreams. As soon as I step away from the mirror she ceases to exist. Take away the glamour which the night and the city have cast over her, remove her from the pages of the magazine and place her in a six floor walk-up in Spanish Harlem and she's just an ordinary, exhausted, confused yet determined young woman after a long night with the prospect of an even longer day ahead of her.

Tango

Like blood, like breath, the music pulses though me. This is a place where sight cannot guide me, where trust in the person in my arms is everything. Relinquish control, breath, feel the music as it moves through him  and into me. Trust that the next step is inevitable as breath, as the next note. The patterns imprint themselves on my mind, and although my eyes are closed I see the beauty of our movements. I feel it in the curve of my spine, the length of my legs, the balls of my feet, my body belongs not to me but to the song. And the song speaks of first love, of loneliness and laughter and of tears. It speaks of the night, inky and passionate, of city streets, empty cafe tables, the sweetness of wine and the bitterness of time. It flirts, demands, coaxes, then slips away shadowy as memory. Stillness. I open my eyes. Emerge from the dance like a dreamer awakening. Return to the present, once again stand on my own, breath on my own, til the next song, the next dance.