Voices

I suspect my lover
of everything: hands on
the hands of an exotic drum,

listening for a stranger
rhythm, one I cannot intuit;
words are my skin,

and I inhabit the whisperings
of a rival language--I say
you are, I am, but it means nothing

in the moment of music;
the questions of soul
mating mind and body

are impossible and inherently
unspoken in his expression.
I desire the abstraction

in which he is fluent and he flows
without the weight of words,
never listening for meaning

but knowing how to feel. Is it impossible
to understand what is possible? My articulations
are inescapable, a fate wrought with inquiry,

a demand for explanation, knowing
words are the curse
beating me down, beating me down.