The idea was always
_                __                _transfer: how to use
_                _the body to eliminate

_                __                _the body; at thirteen,
_                _to experience bleeding
_                __                _toes as pirouettes turning

to tornadoessucking in
_                __                _and flaring out.

All that connects the dancer
_                _to the pocked studio floor

_                __                _is a block of wood concealed
_                __                _within a pink satin skin.

Grands jetés across the room
_                __                _to the score of the teacher’s stick,

_                __                _each staccato _chaîné_spotted in the mirror,

_                __                _eyes, head, flat plane
_                __                _of the torso doubling;

numbers choreographed and counted
_                __                _like an iron-clad pulse

_                _so all steps beat as evenly
_                __                as blood through the heart.
_                                                                Look.

You can see it happening,
_                __                _the delicate gauze of sweat and heft

_                _as each dancer strives
_                __                __                _to skirt the angles
_                _of the flesh, to strain herself

_                __                _into the glitter
of sun through skylight.

And is this after all
_                __                _these years,
_                __                __                _the point? To lose

the matter of the self,
_                __                _to move beyond

_                _the body’s weights & levers,

_                __                _those sensible mechanics
_                __                _that keep us functioning?

Clearly we are flesh,
_                _not air. Yet how we lean

_                __                _toward that crossing,
_                _the loss of body,

_                _movement as movement
_                __                _alone, voices now

_                __                __                _becoming instruments,

_                __                _words becoming
_                _no more, no less, than breath:

_                                                                watch as we expire._