The Dancer

The faces peer from the corner of the room And watch every move her willowy hands make The fingers opening and closing Plucking the strings of an untuned heart. Her form glides without restriction Parallel to the barre Through the words that choke and sting The careless musings of glass-eyed fondlers. She will not bend to the indignity of an idle charm Nor stoop in supplication of a whim Her flight is measured in headlong leaps An unyielding music that springs from her soul A taunting pirouette on pointed toe. ~ Laurence Overmire (Previously published in New York Minute: An Actor's Memoir, Indelible Mark Publishing,2017)