Drunk In a Barre
Once manifested on the
heel of Adagio in G major,
balancés and assemblés from
the back hand. Baryshnikov told
me to flatten my stomach, so I
repressed the urge to
breathe; suffocation is
incandescence by the barre.
Then I looked in the mirror and the
mirror glared back in contempt- the meat, the
pillow I nursed in my belly, the spine,
always sagging like the pools of honey in my knees. I
shoveled over some Hydroxycut and pride, and bribed
it to be my lover.
Quitting was hard, unless I never
did it. Unless I cigarette-butted
my way out of Saturday rehearsals. Timed death.
As if I could peel a stopwatch from
nodules of encephalon, shake it in front
of Svetlana- ‘I have a rendez-vous with
the Pope, my future is to become a
world-class wine connoisseur, wine
demands an open mouth, not skinny torsos and
high relevé’
Little girls always dream in the soles of pink pointe shoes,
but magic approximates deception and the infamous
split blooded toe.
My mother has the home tapes. Me shanae-ing on
kitchen floor so close to the bowl of kiwis I could sense
the lanate growth. Then I got dizzy. Then I fell and
sprained the right ankle. It’s been
twenty-two Broadway shows, twenty-three if you
count the one where Price made us tap dance
on Eighth Avenue to prove to Lenny that we were
diverse and versatile (I don’t know how to tap).
Now, my feet are lumps of unheated coal and a post-it
note folds on the desk of your office, green like the tea I
brew on Saturday afternoons. That,
I guess, must be resignation.
Copyright © Grace Zha | Year Posted 2014
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