A long precarious thin wire, tiny dancer’s feet.
Shoved her face, in the brutal voice of his father said, “Shut up.”
She moved in light so you couldn’t see her.
Every inch of her he loved, tight stockings, bodice. Silk and ruffles.
She found her way blindfolded to the other side. Clapping. She all bridge walking.
Afterward with the jug, he’d feel joy, wish he could undo the bad days.
I want to hold you up like wine, see spun light through you.
You’d never fall, my whole love a bridge, not a bruise across your life.
Your hips joy, your mouth wine, your face open like sky.
Pink open, wet across my day.
I savage you, words, knives in my throat.
I want to hold you. I slash like windmills chop the sky.
Hush, she said, we can walk across shadows
to London Bridge, cross the Thames.
Come with me to another country. She’d walk holding his hand,
every time believing she could do it.
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