dances mon uow like light on wave, wing on air 050403 ... ovenbird The dancer will not dance with me. He picks a woman wearing my dress instead. (The green-gold velvet gathered at the waist with a rhinestone clasp). He whisks her away. (She looks beautiful in my dress). And she comes back flushed and amazed. To dance with the dancer is to become a dancer yourself. He leads so seamlessly that you suddenly find you have grace you never possessed alone. He’s wearing a shirt with ruffled sleeves, so darkly beautiful. He knows his own power. You can tell by the way he stands, his red velvet coat with tails falling perfectly from his shoulders, his posture pristine, balletic. I sit nervously as he weaves through the crowd. I both want, and do not want, him to choose me. When he comes to sit beside me I am a prey animal, frozen and more awake than I’ve ever been, my blood tainted by terror. He looks at the cup of water set before me, sneers, and moves to stand, thinking I’m too poor to pay for the privilege of his dance. I try to explain that I’m only drinking water because wine leaves me sick and wandering in the dark, but he’s already leaving. I feel something like shame and something like sorrow. Something like disappointment and something like self-loathing. I am half-way through my life and still convinced that my body is ugly in flight. The woman in my dress is spinning in a reverie of memory, changed by the act of dancing. I sip my water. I swallow hard against the fear I’ve carried since birth that has stopped me from risking the instability of a twirl. My feet tap a rhythm on the floor–the closest thing to dancing my destitute heart can muster. 261027 what's it to you? who go blather from