Stasia Ward Kehoe

I feel his arm
Lightly
Over me.
He takes one of my outstretched hands.
Draws it beneath my stomach.
"One more time..."
This is not sex,
Not friendship.
Something
Strange
Special
In the stillness of his breath,
The waterlike way he moves.
He is making a dance.
We are making a dance.

I am pretty sure the myth of me
Is better than the reality.

Wish my life were inside a book
So I could turn to the ending,
See if it is a love story
Or a gothic disaster.

Now, the edges of these memories sharpen.
I see the cracks in the studio floor beneath her feet,
The lack of turnout in her fifth position.

What was true and solid begins to slide, dissolve.
Your thoughts unravel faster than a satin ribbon
Whose edge hasn't been burned
Until you sit amidst a tangle of limp, pink threads,
Unable to reason
At all.

Are we alike
In that in-betweenness?
Can he see,
When I smile my blue eyes back
At his brown ones,
The country-city-woman-girl
Dancer, student
Bewildered
Unbelonging
Yearning?