Shaman in Chicago
You meet him dancing.
He impresses you when he lifts you
over his head and turns you
upside down.
You wander into the lightning,
stretch into pilgrimage mountains,
an avalanche of wild geese
flying over the
ice fall.
You free his body heat
as he stretches on the sand
in his totem body,
as he wraps you inside
the wild shadows
of his longing.
He has the positions
memorized —
gazelle, zebra, snake,
snow leopard.
In the photograph
his smile is too big.
The shaman, the Taoist scholar
is in the cheekbones.
When the world is too cold
would you rub whale oil
warmed by a candle
over his muffled breathing?
Would you wash him
when he dies?
— Diane Frank
