Poetry

Candlestick

A year later, you were still tracing the sequence in your sleep:
Five foot from the floor,
Left leg bent neatly over bar, point toes
With as much grace as you can muster;
Right leg wound into the rope, once, twice,
Foot flexed hard into the thick hard twine;
Then breathe deep, let go your blistered palms' sticky, sweaty grip
And droop backwards, slowly,
Til your fingers meet the surface of the rubber bed below,
Your body suspended,
Spine arched,
Torso stretched taut.

Back then you loved your body
For what it could do:
Fold forward at the waist to bow
Over legs butterflied wide;
Or roll eleven cartwheels in a row,
Legs and arms rigid, braced
Against earth, now air,
And again,
Like a messy, wheeling star.

Georgia Elander