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 promise to be open
And be honest with themselves
About their bodies’ inclinations
And the systems that replace
The very fiber of their beings
With shame they're made to feel they've always felt
And there's quiet on the set
Except that 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