Continuity by Terrance Hayes

Continuity

 

Before getting into the cab, she hands him a cup.
Then, after they kiss, she hands him the cup again.

As they walk, she hands him a man-made substance.
Then, after they kiss, she hands him the cup again.

She hands him a chalice of lightning
& he hands her a chalice of fire.

Then in the next shot, after they kiss,
They exchange chalices again.

When she goes through the metal detector,
She carefully places a pair of hoop earrings in a plastic tray.

When she retrieves them,
They are two silver bangles she fits to her wrists.

When they climb from the cab in the rain, her hair is wet,
But when they kiss on the sidewalk her hair is dry again.

After she takes off her helmet & breastplate,
& enters the water wearing nothing but courage,

She says to him, “You are nude,
But you must be naked to win.”

Or she says, “To survive you must lay bare
The heart,” according to the closed captions.

When they climb from the river, her hair is a river
Where night has fallen, tangled with twigs & stars,

Parting like a path of escape.
But in the very next shot,

As they climb from the river,
Her hair is braided with wire & string.

When he bangs on the rain-streaked window
Of the cab yelling her name in a pivotal scene,

Briefly reflected in the window in the rain
Tangled with wires & stars above a river

Is the hand of a fan or stagehand or bodyguard,
Body double, bystander, interloper, beloved ghost,

& the two of us watching from a bridge on the far side.