To swing dance, you have to form resistance
between the pressing hands, enter an orbit
of pushing apart, arcing away, recovery just
at the apogee, reeling back in to the perigee.
In breathing, conventional thinking has
the end of the exhale as home;
in dance and in love, the coming back
to each other's arms as beginning and end.
But I want to honor the apogee,
the long cool sally into space alone.
Not to say that I don't want you:
I love how you violate my space.
I want you to do it again, deeper.
I just like the chance to look at you sidelong
(how you see a star best by averting your eyes),
and feel my own periphery, unbroken, in the evening air.
So for now I'm an astronaut of love,
floating head over heels, unbound.
I bend down to the little round porthole
and savor my longing for you.