Thai Dancing Girls

Their eyes follow the slow grace of each gesture. Hands curl, flare, and flex, a ballet of fluent fingertips. Long nails as red as tongues turn in a polished eloquence. Delicate arms hold aloft delicate hands, wrists arabesque, palms turn like pages. You hear the voice of the hands, see the song of the hands, your feet shuffle wanting to emulate, participate, relate, but your own hands are in love and angry, they cannot speak; for you missed the moment when these dancing women became open flowers upon a flowing river. Your clenched fists are a kind of bare knuckled poetry, one that only a sinuous water can read. All you can do now is watch the words that hands make as if you were a mute stone around which a river flows.