A poet in the company of dancers
E. Fleischman
A body hovers propped on another body’s arms and legs:
person table supported upwardly minutely swaying.
The stillness of these dancers is tiny motion
embracing the potential for stillness and
their tumble which must occur.
Their skill comes not from the duration of hovering,
but from the soundlessness of their plunge into the momentum
of their weight unbalancing, and the indescribability of their transition
into new positions of the same beautiful bodies.
These dancers are skillful:
in a moment, the flyer rolls overhead into a deep-weighted squat
and the platforming person balances upon those shoulders.
Many more bodies come and go,
dancing bodies
glowing with kinetic energy
beyond homage to Michelangelo.
This is all for example:
to write a poem of dancers is like
after dancing hard how the butt leaves a sweat-print
on the mat in the shape of a valentine heart.
