Man with Hands and Ankles Bound

Past midnight you're peeking
Your neighbor's open window shades
Saw a man crouched on the hardwood
On his knees and elbows splayed
Like an offering, an altar call reordering
The story of our origin, some primal thing
An elemental shame
There's a light on in the darkness to an unfurnished apartment
And a mattress on the ground
There's a woman standing upright like some archangel alighting
In the nighttime and before her
There's a man with hands and ankles bound
And we don't need the sound to know the plot of the film
Angles switching in between her and him
Captions bracketed the language of skin
Cut to a room past midnight
Frame the camera on two lovers' conversation
Where they promised to be open and be honest with themselves
About their bodies' inclinations and the systems that replace
The very fiber of their beings with a shame they're made to feel
They've always felt
And there's quiet on the set
Except the ceiling fan there turning
Throwing sound in all directions
There's a process of unlearning
There's a tension when he says
"Sometimes I think of you with strangers
When I lie awake at night afraid in bed
With or without me to watch or to stand at the edge
Where your back is a bridge and the distance it spans
Goes from me to some man
Goes out from an old familiar country
To some uncharted land"
And you're peeking through the curtain
To a naked man deserted and a mattress on the ground
To apartments still unfurnished and indulgences unburdened
There's a figure disappearing with a briefcase through the front door
In the crowd
Man with hands and ankles bound
Man with hands and ankles bound
Man with hands and ankles bound
Man with hands and ankles bound
And we follow her out of the house
Then pull it back, widen the shot
Lose her inside of the crowd
Then go black
But leave the sound in to carry it out
The last act
Credits roll past the crowd and now
Bring the houselights back