THREE DANCES

Practice—gestures—tactics—resist

Inflection: left sweep, humerus, arc, turn

Inflection: the dream’s arm, the beat’s wing

Motion: quarter turn, and seen

through the scrim, the seem-stain of its edging.

It is a field of gray-brown, a soft diffusing:

iris-rain. The bodies somber and phantom.

Some leg says, “Pulse and pause, arch, flex,

contract. This is kind of a step, kind of

sideways flying. This likes defying

space and what defines it.” This like

defiance is a violence, primed set.

Thus like silence is a mime, a blind

beating at the border of variation.

Some hand says, “Come to the circle

of my grasp, soft task, dim slip

in my imprecision. I graze, I grip,

I pulse my fingers into scroll.”

Turn to the turbulence of from—

core, medium, torso in its anchor,

its beyond. Torn air—accepts,

expels its entry, portal, key.

Then trails its shape, boreal, ghostly.

Part, turn. Deflection in a space, a twist:

the beat’s swarm, the multiplying determine.

Inflect, deform.

 

Action Mechanics

A body only bounces a little—trajects in the impetus

leaves several infant motions in its going

Dodges steel and space, weights in the whir of

obstacle and no

barrier to launch, to cinch, to

curl in the pull, adduction

sprung—

a knee was dreaming

spatiality and then

a force that coursed

“nothing was hunting,

a joy that pushed me”

this leap to free

and lope to pole

gravitational shallow

“or sure there’s more

measure to arrow”

in the impress of

a sighted sinew

assaulting wall

yes we bounce

it’s a habit of survival

 

Rites of Spring

Forms—the woman whose chains are arms

who’s hectic in her disparity

her tottered body.

They make a trajectory—

a partner, a wire—

a whirl into future

from the launch-point, fuse.

The dark down the chest

where the force fists—bruise.

Tense now—collarbone, column,

solid web.

The urge is sternum-stamen,

pollen flaming.

It shears the air,

scores the schism.

It persists.