A Beautiful Dancer Magnified

What is it like to be a beautiful dancer

Of ballet, of jazz, of modern dance

The traditional tutus and gowns the midriff and scantily-liberated playfulness of

Dance shorts booty shorts and gymnastics leotards

Lace, bobby socks, stockings and stocking-less-ness

And dance shoes, boots or bare feet

The celebration but visual dissection of the body, tightly clothed, barely clothed

Translucent in its femininity and grace but ever present in the instant

Wonderfully natural in free movement and tauntingly fluid

In being unnatural-classical?

 

The pointed toes, developed calves, but the lovely long legs,

Kicking out legacy after legacy

The feet in the air, toe-tips holding the body

As if boneless but still standing

Strong, taut stomachs glaring with sweat

The pumping pelvis, swaying hips and the booty popping

Never stopping but hardly once only to smile in blazing lights,

The heat of being viewed under visual amplification

And through the makeup and the tears of perfection.

 

I see her then in the “preamble” the still pose in the beginning before the dancing

She is statue like, glares at the audience with a surety, with a classical confidence this time

And she holds out her hand so much so that one often misses that she does not have one.

Yet, she’s the premier ballerina, center on stage, under the magnifying glass

I am moved with I-cannot-help-it tears

 

This is what it means to be a girl on “being-seen steroids”

But she handles it with hand-less arm outstretched

In a beautifully vulnerable but tough-as-steel moment

While her parent seems doubtful, unsure, and protective

Whisking the girl away after, a blur of peach-colored nylon

A glimpse of a blushed face and double eyeliner

An act of being tentatively unseen-seen.

 

She was there, she was classic-classical but intriguing

Boldly confident within the confines of adolescent uncertainty

But with a poise of a mature women

Where we peer at her, magnify her, and assess

If she’s good or not, cute or not, pretty or not,

Fat or not, skinny or not, or noticed or not.