Perhaps in Search of You

If the world were always sexual –

and let’s decide it is today –
then it must be much like
the raven-haired improbably fleet
lean young dancer whom I saw this
morning on the subway – keen black

irises and alabaster skin and ebon
eyebrows like two painted wings –
Egyptian iconography made blood-
warm flesh: the world would dip as
freshly, deeply, gracefully as the plié
with which he entertained his rush-hour

audience astride a silver pole
obligingly provided by the MTA:
it would play the role he played
as he engaged my eyes as we got off
our ride at Twenty-Third Street –
and I told him how delightfully I thought

he’d danced for us – and he asked
in accents of some middle-eastern
country I could not decipher
what I did – and I forbade myself
to answer that my occupation was

to linger full to brimming everywhere

to find such finds as him – so I just
smiled as he stood waiting for a cue –
which I denied him: ah, New York! –
I knew of course I had to minister instead

to you. Meanwhile I sighed to watch him

glide away – perhaps in search of you.

.