Maitresse

Danseuse ajustant sa brettelle, 1895-96, Edgar Degas

Maitresse

©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

It's music I remember most of all.

Soaring strains of winged Tchaikovsky

brought to earth by steady beat

of wooden cane against a parquet floor.

The ballet mistress, mean with added weight,

despised her torpid flesh and tortured ours.

Through us she danced, each arabesque

a thrust against our firm yet fragile borders.

I foiled each foray, held her off with

grand battement, changement, changement, changement.

Her face was rouge, piqued by my piqué turns.

She chastised us for nibbling a cruller,

gorged herself on crepes and jam.

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