Maitresse
©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
Tags: art, ballet, dance, discipline, teacher
