the dancer

the dancer

he fell down, klunkered, noisily and artlessly
2 steps, 7 steps, oily and self-serving steps
concreted ignominy, capricious undoers of

his daily rhumba, pirouettes pas-de-fantaisie
extase, his quick marvels of small and wondrously
arched feet, tiny waltzers perfect in a sarabande

rolling in arrhythmic flutters into a butterfly
unwinged, leaving awkward drops of a
puccini flavor strewn here there upon below

disfiguring in their raucous unwholesome way
this dancefloor that he'd crafted out of glamours
as tribute to a life boundaried by grace

by lily pureties, demi-mondes and teas roasted
correctly poured correctly into blue faience, fox
trots sagely manufactured for the afternoon cross-

legged whispers, oblique startles from brown
haired visitors suppering on his jitterbug, pleasuring
on his brazen m.grahams, swilling in his pas-

de-une, he lay, 2 steps, 7 steps, indelicately positioned
to satisfy the critics of the dance, reviewers of salons
extraordinaire, shruggers drifting off in smiles