Dance Company
A Poem
I am a tenuous what-if this morning.
I wonder for whom I should lunge for next,
if this spotlight before me is all that I possess,
a light that chases torch-bearing angels
into the deep night of a dress rehearsal.
The new quiet is a chlorine bleach
of call time tradition. What will I search for
tomorrow with footstep and a downstage slam?
I’ll insert some verse here about bed-wetting,
a broken hand, some extra strapping.
Breakups must be a thermal law,
a regularly scheduled metamorphosis —
unborn, suddenly there, then gone again,
like a ballet dead blackout, a piqué
to the blood carrier, tour jeté of solace
that leaves an impression I was fit to dance.
I watch you in the show while I am seated —
I watch you seated, and I am spinning.
©️ Trapper Markelz 2023
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