Ryan Patrick Smith
Shadow Manual
Practice your edges and having
no edges, what it is to dissolve.
Understand motion:
Nothing can remain still,
or anything but the signal of a body
holding a light back.
You must shiver as a lampshade does,
agree with the man spread over his bed
to be any shape he asks his hands
to cast against the ceiling:
black dove, rabbit’s head.
Be willing to wait. Be willing to move,
slide, as though you are ice,
keep your skin fluid and dark as a lake,
and maybe the man prefers the dove
to the rabbit, maybe he doesn’t, though
he does love the angle and pulse
of its wings. Give yourself to the day
when it comes, unstuff your animal
self, your shadow taxidermy.
Be willing to disappear.