RED CIRCLE DANCE

You hide your hunger for me
from me, until your belly
is gaunt with it and your teeth 
ache and you eat me with 
your eyes from across the clearing.

Like a deer dancing before
the arrow, I offer myself
up to you, to make me
into the stuff of you, and you
changed by the meat of me.

Only you are worthy enough 
to pierce me, to draw the life
force from me, to split me open
and thrust your hands into 
the gape and heat of my chest.

And when the feast is over, we lay			
close and quiet, our hearts
tender and edible, bellies 
full of us and swollen together,
the good fat shiny on our chins.



© 2004 by Richard W. Todd

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