Poem: Figure

In death the hands are folded flat
in the opposite gesture of a mudra pose in which
the nerves of the fingers poise tenuously holding
an awkward figure at the level of the manipura chakra.
The thumb and forefingers meet and grasp
the surface of the world’s umbra.

Undoing movement is the body’s final act as the artificial center,
the place where tongues meet the rosary of touch,
the smooth wooden beads, the silence between prayers
like the drumming repetition of sex—
the body, arched taut as a snare and released, undone.