The Balloon
In a dream I was on a bare stage somewhere, hot under blue gels,
and the dance Mistress wanted to make sure I was strong.
Instead of admitting ankle-sprain, or crushed toes,
I retied ribbons on my practice point shoes and stretched hamstrings to the breaking at the bar.
She commanded me to do a plie; then pressing her hand in the small of my back, another.
No arch, she said, flatten it.
No longer fourteen or any linear age, I could feel skin-color tights webbing at the crotch, pleating below the knees.
as I remembered how she loathed imperfection.
So did I
Reaching to smooth my tights, she roughly touched my thigh, and said, You're getting fat.
my feet were now bleeding.
Silently, I turned from the bar, stuck a pin in her once, then again, until she began to shrivel, until she popped.
Limping past pools of hot blue light, I found a woman-child
crouching in the wings, arranging animals from Noah's Ark.
She was hanging them from a broom stick two by two,
suspending each pair by their necks with silver chord.
A frayed tutu jutted below her belly and her textured tights sagged at her knees
Looking up, she arched her back
The tummy became flat
And picking a scab from her elbow, she asked me why?
Why I had popped my balloon?
