ballet

Maitresse

Written by Susan Noyes Anderson on . Posted in General-Literary Poems

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©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

Image: ballet – Danseuse ajustant sa brettelle by Edgar Degas

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 quite well. Used
grand battement, changement, changement, changement.
Face flushing rouge, piqued by my piqué turns,
she chastised us for nibbling a cruller.
Gorged herself on cream-filled crepes and jam.
∞§∞

“People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.”
–Edgar Degas

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