Middle of the Movie

The TV is on mute: a slender man
in a towel shoos a moth from the sill
of an open door, while on the porch appears
(he does not see, the movie forbids him)
a dream-large shape with a cartoonish mask, which halts,
cocks its head, turns, and seeps ever closer
to him. It is the return of aparthood,
a figure whose aim, before it kills him,
is to woo us in an extended moment
with its awful grace, forcing the part of us
that houses desire to come to grips
with our impulse to destroy, as if we were
to see the tremor in cupped hands
presenting a lotus flower they would crush.