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Dear Manuscript

 

Dear Manuscript,

I must tell you, the most feminine part of a woman’s body is not of shape.  Nor of measure.  Not in the old or new refinements of nude face and chiseled figure, nor in the demure of neck or tilt of chin.  Not mannered, not cultured.  Not in the sweep of hip turned, nor in the return of hair tossed back.  Not her supplest ankle, nor her subtlest bats of eyelash.  Dear MS, I must insist, feminine grace exists not in her arc of arm raised, nor in the sway of waste hooked.  Not her ballet spin, nor the half-circles in her Tango steps and bend.  Not the pose, nor the dance.  Her more feminine symmetry is not in the aligned sway of lower belly with strive of back, nor as she spoons at either side of lover, though we're closer yet.  Not her frail tips of clavicle jutting so pale and near her throat, not the quote of shoulder tops, nor her parenthetical hips, however alluring their statements within, however close the source, a distant second at best.  Her incumbent strength cannot be calibrated by the surge of breast cupped, nor in the curve of thigh held.  Not the lift of throat’s kiss, nor the plunge of soft belly.  Not the burst of fresh face, nor as her knees raise slowly at first.  Not when hurried fingers stretch her lover’s skin.  Nor her fingers, nor her skin.  Not the sigh parting her smile, nor the smile that forms her lover’s name.  Not her smile, not her name, nor her language, nor her vision, however distinguished from ours.  Dear Men-who-script such, I admit I too am biased.  The most beautiful aspect of a woman’s body is not of flesh, not of marrow, not of throat, but of two small bones that make the gestalt and the rest accessible: her iliac crest.  Ah Manuscript, have you ever noticed that those two protruding pelvic bones that front the hips are near symmetrical to her juts of clavicle, the way the two bones together caption the faint V of groin muscles, as if to raise to capitals the V of Vagina and Venus, the arrow directing both eyes and tongue down to the inevitable, to where this V of groin muscles sinks incomplete, its tip buried in the old source? Forever referring back into herself.  Beauty is in the invitation.  And, haven't you noticed as well how at either side of pubis her shadowy groove of groin flesh is as fluid when she lies and as firm when she stands as any other muscle.  Forever being her every-muscle.  As with her contradicting contractions, all her muscle pathways bend and blend into each other, body disappearing back inside herself along with every look and gesture we only think we see.  As when our wherewithal gusts of after-language blur the trails to way back when, returning us not to the source unseen, we further lose what we seek when stopping to make map of our mis-directions.  Did you ever know her more beautiful than when she opened outward in her every manner and trust? Beauty is in her invitation to the thresh that reflects beginning, the thrash of our differences--the fabric from which lover and love letter spring and return.  I wish we could write so simply, you could actually feel the pelvic bones fitting so well in the welling of my palms, round and hard like cheekbones, near symmetrical to her jutting of clavicle, as they lift handlebar-like, guiding the tips of my body into the touch that opens through dark tastes seen best with eyes closed.  Ah manuscript, you should have been there.

 

--- Chris Custer