Beneath the archway entrance to “Suite Seven”, we meet – she & I.

Guide, in royal purple robes that sweep the bisque-pink floor.

Follow Her through open airy room, up shallow steps, outdoors,

where the galleried stone patio – in artful feat of craftsmanship –

floats above a rippling valley of plush & foliaged green.

She never speaks; smiles & leads to He who wears the cobalt blue

of heaven & instructs me in Inversion.

“Hands here; feet here;

hips & tailbone high;

relax the head & neck.”

Ah…warmth of sun-soaked slates beneath my palms, my soles;

spacious planes of earth & sky agreeably reversed.

Together, He & She delineate my form, glide shrewd hands along

elongated muscles, stacked bones; correct awkward tilts & angles,

structure & position, until all is in alignment, agreement.

She steps back, recedes, Her hands two secrets folded deep within

flared purple sleeves.

He remains, moves His flattened palms in slip-skin circular motion,

between my shoulder blades; base of neck; kneads trapezius;

works flesh & muscle like soft clay; fashions, in their place, a shallow,

gently rimmed concavity.

Utterly painless.

Utter somatic re-shaping, re-formation.

He places there, in that space, the sphere – large, heavy as a bowling ball

& as smoothly polished; blue as His robes;

places that unanticipated & arcane globe in the new-formed bodily basin

of upper back, where it rests – veritable onus, orbicular albatross –

against the occipital ridge at the nape of my neck.

“Don’t move, don’t move…”

His words resound like hollow wind in ocean cave.

“Maintain the Inversion.

Do not lose the ball.

Do not let it roll free

to crush your hands,

your skull.”

The sphere, so deeply blue, so heavy & slipping…slipping & shifting…

shifting & sliding…inching ever forward over & toward my right ear.

Each time, they catch it – He & She.

With pointed re-instruction, He returns it, places it in its corporeal nest.

Again & again & again…

Cannot endure. Was not built for this. Cannot maintain this shape.

Feel the cry forming, deep within – release me release me release me…

Let it

fall.

— C.Birde, 11/20