Ballet At Lakeside

My friend Hedgewitch says, write, even if you think it's crap. My horoscope in today's Detroit Free Press said the same thing. I might resist one of them, but never both. So I wrote.

BALLET AT LAKESIDE

I throw my bones out on the dark smooth surface of the water;

I say, "you are as hard and as pale as the one I love the best--"

My flesh no longer holds you;

My bleeding does not move you;

So I reject you,

And in so doing, can no longer stand.



I lie on the shore like a castaway or a starfish,

And my bones get up and dance--

White ghosts on the polished black floor in front of me.

I say, "you haven't any guts...they are not synonymous with hubris--"

But as long as the depths adore you,

As long as I care enough to lift my head and spit,

You, my bones, will glow in the emptiness

Like a shell thrown into the night sky by a dying gypsy

Already cooling in the light of a thousand stars--

Beautiful,

Extinct,

And too proud to go dark without a dirty word and a wink.

__________