She steps into her teenage self,
calls up ballet’s first port de bras.*

She raises her rounded arms
as if drawing an imaginary line
from her thighs to the crown of her head,
while a current passes through her
awakening an inner flame.

As her arms climb 
to a Chopin tune the live pianist
bangs out, her gaze is a candle
that never stops burning. Oh,
to linger forever in this dream.

At the top of the movement
her limbs become wings.
She floats them downward
subduing her ferocious longings
and in the name of what keeps her alive,
the light in her body expands.
 

© by Jean Colonomos.
Used with the author’s permission.

*a movement of the arms