Lord of the Dance

Kirstin Allio

I dreamed I had to hold
water without    
drowning.

                       
I couldn’t chew,
I couldn’t point
my toes to dive.

 
A courtly old ballet
master,
Death,

 
stabbed his Swan
Point, stood on
Ceremony, the last

 
stage, the light
from the columbarium
door the wedge

 
of a wedding train.
Barnacles of salt
had digested the stairs

 
down to the shore,
and the final
step left

 
a carbon footprint.
The sky was black.
A cormorant

 
flapped off,
spokeless.
I couldn’t speak,                                        

 
and I felt my ballet
training prevented me from breaking
into a natural stride.

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Kirstin Allio’s books are Buddhism for Western Children (University of Iowa) and Garner (Coffee House), and the story collection Clothed, Female Figure (Dzanc). Recent work is out or forthcoming in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Bennington Review, Conjunctions, Fence, New England Review, Plume, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Brown University’s Howard Foundation and MacDowell.