Writing

I know this dancer …

She draws her world with eyeliner
puddling mahogany at the corner of her eyes
frosted lavender dusts her lids the shimmer
of a tight sweater

I’m an artist
a little Picasso, she says,
and tells me wild imaginary things
of men that can’t resist touching her skin,
that ache to slide between her flesh
and cry with the fervor of the reborn

On the stage, she dips into the crowd
their animal selves gnaw the air and draw close
breathing her marrow
She fingers them – fathers, brothers, husbands, boys
like forgotten change in her pocket
coins lost in the bottom of her purse
gummed with bits of Juicy Fruit, tobacco
tainted with perfume samples ripped from magazines

With a lazy rhythm she rides the pole
squanders her art in foreplay
one dollar at a time
I’ll get out of there, she tells me
over a sink of dishes to her elbows
I want a car that doesn’t drain water every fifty miles
to walk into K-Mart and buy whatever I want

One day, a clear day, a jasmine laced sweet day
she’ll sweep her fine arch
on the right shoulder
and find herself in a waterfall

I want to tell this story
from the beginning
though I really only know the end.
When you were five
there were six of you
one pair of shoes
one good dress
you weren’t yet big enough
but you dreamed of buttoning the collar
around your neck
spinning like cotton candy
twirling the hem into a tutu 

when you were ten
and there were eight of you
two pair of shoes
one for the little ones
one for the bigger
you smoothed the dress
over your legs
knocked your knees
pulled at the hem
and folded into the davenport
losing your silhouette to the pillows 

when you were thirteen
and there were five of you,
the little ones died,
two pair of shoes
one put away
one for the rest of you,
wearing that dress
the hem hugging your thighs
just the way men like
you scurried through the door
like it was your fault 

when you were fifteen
there were three of you
the others had left
two pair of shoes
one still put away
one for all of you
the landlord wanted paid
you put on your Mother’s dress
grabbed the bottle of whiskey
took him to the root cellar
and paid the rent

when you were seventeen
there were two of you left
three pair of shoes
one was still put away
one for the other one
one you earned paying rent
you put on your own dress
slapped fifty dollars on the table
and hitchhiked to Savannah

when you were eighty-five
and there was one of you
I laced your feet into ballet slippers
fluffed the tutu around your
skinny slim body
and we rolled out the door
of the Magnolia Manor
shouting
Fuck the landlord!

Mystify me
pull diamonds from the night black
and paint my lips
the color of forever

wave your hand across all this
and feed a hundred thousand faces
from a hummingbird’s beak
and brush the broken, bruised, and bare
from the tender of my eyes
into a pastoral landscape
of singing valleys
and deep green grass

catch her as she dives the final swan,
less form than release,
swaddle her in the sun
start all over again
then
maybe I’ll drop to my knees
swear a soul to redeem
and pray to your name
amen