Dancing Blind
~Norma Farber
Lovers with twenty -
twenty vision never know
the dance of the purblind
who learns by heart
her space, eighth-inch
at a time; who binds
in the ribbons of toe-
shoes a hard
cane-sense to ward
off hazards, to tap
that pit by whose brink
she dares lift on pin-
point her cantilever
arabesques. never fear
power failures
for those who advance
only by dark. Feel
the fouettés overlap:
a wheel, seamless, tight
on a disciplined spindle.
Whip air and go.
Safe against stray
flickers and shades:
tranced she hovers
the necessary distances,
expecting no leeway
till when, lights lowered,
she crumples, led
offstage, offsight.
And still
past midnight moving,
moving in her skilled
marrow, in the pain
of not moving, till
sleep, the unseeing, spells
her limbs: she performs
two fingers -- twin
dowsing stems -- on a square
foot of counterpane.
They divine the field.
Touching, intent,
she dips at the source. |
