Waltz
I touch hatred like a covered breast; I without stopping go from garment to garment, sleeping at a distance. I am not, I'm of no use, I do not know anyone; I have no weapons of ocean or wood, I do not live in this house. My mouth is full of night and water. The abiding moon determines what I do not have. What I have is in the midst of the waves, a ray of water, a day for myself, an iron depth. There is no cross-tide, there is no shield, no costume, there is no special solution too deep to be sounded, no vicious eyelid. I live suddenly and other times I follow. I touch a face suddenly and it murders me. I have no time. Do not look for me when drawing the usual wild thread or the bleeding net. Do not call me: that is my occupation. Do not ask my name or my condition. Leave me in the middle of my own moon in my wounded ground.
Waltz - meaning Summary
Alienation Under the Moon
The speaker expresses profound isolation and dislocation, moving through life like a restless dancer detached from home and identity. Images of night, water, moonlight, and wounds create a mood of interior exile and emotional numbness. Repeated refusals—do not call me, do not ask my name—insist on privacy and an unbridgeable distance from others. The poem sketches a self both fragile and closed off, alternating sudden contact with a return to withdrawal.
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