TOBIN JAMES MUELLER
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The Androgyne


The Androgyne tried to slow the momentum
of the centrifugal force tearing at the fabric of her/his universe.

What awful gravity, playing its tricks of space and time,
bodies spinning into separate fragments, separate lives.

What redoubtable law of nature, imposing its warrants and ultimatums,
defining boundaries between and distinctions among.

The once joined she/he, the Androgyne, was being torn asunder.
The miracle of the we dissolved by the jealous, mistaken hand of Zeus.

No longer one vertebrae shared, one center of balance, one axis of orientation.
The newly encapsulated urge of life pulsed behind membranes of impenetrable breadth;

and the touch of skin became the only form of contact.

The Androgyne, now two solitary beings, in human form,
faced each other, nose to nose, for the first time.

Toe to toe. Belly to belly. Hip to hip.
The pull of desire replacing the knowledge of true union.

What pain, what lack, what loss, what longing felt
in that first touch, that first realization, that first wanting.

What hope, what hunger, what nourishment, what promise spilled
out from this first clasp, this first coupling, this first intercourse.

"you and i" drifted softly around the once paired we, becoming the song of lovers.
"Us and Them" murmured among the multiverse of bystanders, hailing

this new naming of individuals beneath the pantheon of heaven.



The Androgyne © 2000 by Tobin James Mueller
"Falling Past Love" published by ArtsForge Press.
All rights reserved.