Dance Lessons

You make sentences
that begin with one word, some word or other,
and end with something clever
that seems to define it.
And I don’t believe them.

Things are simpler
and I simply want
you not to tell me
sentences like this one,
that “…things are simpler…”
or that “the truth lies in something of your choosing”.

I hear you better
when you silently raise your hand
to your lips
or to your hair,
your neck, your breast, your lap…

Or when you absent-mindedly look around.

Or when you absent-mindedly walk
herding imaginary geese

and when I see you keeping silent
about something I will not understand
(and things are simpler)

and we go on learning
to dance with awkward movements,
while the music swallows
the last words.