mas de Carnaval

words on the page are too confining
to reveal the luminosity of the night
a revelry in the ancient sense
a lupercalia – or some other primal rite

this thrumming wild human heart
drumming in ecstatic expression -
one hundred sweating lovers lost
in the pleasure of the dance

the procession -
my hips become the drum
free of conscious effort
freed from even being hips,
becoming part of one long line
of hips and hands and bellies and breasts
that winds its way through the crowded room
my astonished mind along for the ride