Tuesday 16 June 2009

tracing mirror balls

The Body of the Dance

As he dances through and beyond,
past and back, returning to the
time before he started to dance,
he shifts and skips, changes focus:

Seeing others spiral and twist,
breaking through thrown squares of light;
picking up mirrored tiles, to
hold, to squeeze, to eat.

Watching them dance through letters formed
by dashed lines, through sharing better
toys (the least-chewed), through losing
first names to a last initial.

They dance upward, older, taller,
round the social circle, in-out,
weaving a learnt-friendship maypole
of go-to-school, make-friends, close-mind.

He danced to a stillness of thought,
and of mind, and he fell apart
from the throng. He was no dancer;
he was removed from the body.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009

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