Sunil Freeman   SECOND FLOOR DANCE STUDIO Aquamarine and white squares ruled off by silver bars gone to gray; what might have been Mondrian fades into something Hopper could understand. In another universe the stars on the sign might twinkle neon stardust; here they look like asterisks. I see the dancers and know there must be music. They waltz, perhaps so deep in Strauss it could be Hershey's Syrup. They twirl to the window like goldfish rising to catch light and grace it with one muscular moment. Beige curtains frame the picture; they might be lily pads.   THE CINEMATOGRAPHER'S DREAM The Mall, Washington, D.C. February, 1992 Sunshine does its old Vermeer embrace, washing over the flats to the west. It highlights a long touchdown pass, then rolls back to catch the whole field and bathe both teams till they might be the first Olympians. The light rides on shafts of its own finding, little ripples over the grass, a beam that slants and cuts like a halfback. I watch this wanton grace, and then the tourists, who see with eyes of pilgrimage as they climb the slow incline. Their chatter highlights the hush that enfolds us inside the ring road at the summit, the monument's base. We all look to clouds that circle the landscape. There should be chords humming deep in those cumulus hearts; they ride a wind that shatters around us into bright metallic clicks inside the crackling of flags. To the east, a thin black man plays a pop tune lifted from the Andes. His flute is a marriage of gray and silver that's echoed by his tin can, and by the quarter that flares, briefly, then softens, shyly, as it leaves a stranger's hand.   Sheila Rotner The Active Door, 1990, acrylic on canvas, 92 x 87 inches see more of Sheila Rotner's work   MESCALINE, 1971 The senses are primed to jitterbug with the things of the senses so I turn off the lights, crawl into bed, burrow under a quilt, bring my knees up, fetal, and close my eyes. Time forgets to spin itself out. Nothing but colors and sounds and something important, maybe my soul, flowing in and out of a tooth (three left of the left incisor) like solar flares. Sounds and dot patterns spin fugues that shoot from the center of that tooth, then zoom back into my mouth. I'm in outer space. There's something attached to my foot. Oh! It's the earth.   CICADAS, TWILIGHT God's maracas, tiniest staccato ticks piled so thick they go all curvy, backwash and cross rhythms till it's white noise that keeps coming on. They all speak one tongue (or leg twitch) I suppose, but together it's Babel. I let the dizziness come over me, then my ears mosey around in the spin until they find hints: tremors here, fault lines there; they insinuate shapes in the warp and weave. The street man squints and stops and turns then spins fast to glimpse the dance in all that rattle. He cackles at the sky; I don't shy away. I've heard the shapes; if they could all line up just right--not quite diamonds, poly-somethings--I'd coax them, like zippers, and pull.   Sunil Freeman is the author of two books of poems, That Would Explain the Violinist (Gut Punch Press, 1993), and Surreal Freedom Blues (Argonne Hotel Press, 1999). He has lived most of his life in the Washington, DC area, except for a few years in India, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Freeman has performed with Jim Henley and M.A. Schaffner in Men Without Drums, a poetry trio formed in the early 1990s. He has a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and works at The Writers Center in Bethesda, MD. Published in Volume 1, Number 2, Spring 2000.   To read more by this author: Sunil Freeman: The Wartime Issue Sunil Freeman on The Writer's Center: Literary Organizations Issue