duelist

Blade bronzed raised pressed
Pass pressing advancing advances
Loped out in long ringing strides
Lift a ringing brass challenge call
Taken violently from laconinc dreams
Spun out in a moment of fight and flight
Thrown down so too fast as blade
Lodged in railing beside me
Barely have I time in reaction
To raise myself to a form of defense
Purring sheer steel rings out around us
Your blade in your hand seeks your desire
Hungry for my tender flesh under all of it
To carve its way in and burrow beneath
So to too find her own way into my heart.

We trade our trade in terse verses
Full of sweeping slashing full tang words
Parry slash in iambic cadence or troque's refrain
Clapped at either end by the ring of the bell
The screech of edge on edge on edge
We close in close our breath on each other
Between a window of sharpend knives
I breathe her scent and want so much more
Than merely mere victory,
As a hunger from the mouth of an animal
We dance this dance; the age old saw
Her body moves and I learn to follow
We trade step for step, blow for blow
Until one of us is bloodied, spent,
Or begs for mercy