Perigee

  With its black strokes, singing, it smears me, lavish. I’m the night’s white canvas turbulent and stiff. I can grab the stars in my hand. They burn but I can’t let them loose.    

After bandaging blisters and taping arches, we bent our shoes in half, worked the toe boxes softened through repetition and sweat, stuffed the tips with matted wool, snuffed each foot inside, wrapped ribbons taut in pink X-es, knots tucked inside the ankles. Then to the rosin box, to grind pointes and heels against yellow powder in a crust of sticky crystals. Without rosin,

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