Audition (20 page)

To my classmates
About being a dancer.
“An opportunity for leadership,” says my adviser.
Though I think he just worries
I don’t have any real friends.

 

 

I sit in the Upton library
Rifling through index cards
On which I have written meaningless words
About discipline
Technique
Dedication
Strength
Resolve

 

 

Fiction

 

 

Not as powerful as
Crime and Punishment
Nor as funny as
Never Cry Wolf.

 

 

Dare I tell them that since I came here to dance
I have been giving pieces of my body away
To ridiculous diets,

To repeated injuries,
To Remington?

 

 

And that maybe
I think
With each bit of my body

 

 

I lose a little piece of my soul.

About the
Sleeping Beauty
variation.

 

 

How you have to understand
That the littlest développé of your foot
Contains the enormity
Of the most giant pirouette.
How in the small step,
The plié,
The beginning,
Is the climax,
The end.

 

 

I read it out loud
To a sea of blank faces.
They are thinking
Perhaps
How my thin, white neck pokes
From my dark red blazer.

 

 

My fingers slide up,
Crawl over
Pronounced tendons.
My voice fades away.

From the back of the room
My English teacher, Professor O’Malley,
Clears his throat.

 

 

“A little louder, please, Sara.”
He speaks in an Irish brogue,
Usually strong,
Though today his voice
Sounds nearly as strangled
As mine.

 

 

Still my name
Lilts off his tongue,
Draws my hand
Back down to the page.

 

 

I read on.

January at the studio
Is all rambling melody
Without harmonic interruption—
Flat.

 

 

I am exhausted from December,
More exhausted from stolen hours
In Remington’s bed,
Where I am the princess of everything,
Also the palace slave.

 

 

At school we are reading
Paradise Lost
,
Which is mostly amazingly dull
Even though it is about Adam and Eve
And all that trouble.

 

 

I understand that I have bitten
The forbidden fruit.
Still I cannot quite see
What the paradise was
Before.

Was it only the hope
Of being the chosen girl
Of being the great ballerina
Of being special?

 

 

Is paradise only
Possibility?

For Professor O’Malley.
(Not the part about my own sin,
But about paradise
Only being the hope
Of something else.)

 

 

It’s really just because
I cannot do the assignment—
Something about imagery
That leaves me cold.
Plus I haven’t finished reading
Milton’s endless poem
By the date
On the syllabus.

 

 

In the margin of my graded essay
Is a handwritten request
For me to come see him
During office hours,
Which means I’d miss my safe ride
With Ruby Rappaport,
So maybe another time.

Paul, Don, Galina,
Fernando,

 

 

Even Jane,

 

 

Who sits by Paul
Nursing a glass of white wine,
A soft smile behind her eyes
That once in a while
Takes in Remington
Even though, beneath the table,
He holds my hand.

 

 

Despite my efforts
To avoid her gaze,
I nearly walk straight into her
As I come out of a ladies’ room stall.

 

 

“Hey, Sara.”
Jane’s voice is steady, casual.

 

 

My mind scurries around corners
Of embarrassment, fear, guilt,
Then leaps to a self-righteous memory

Of Rem and Jane arguing on a Saturday morning—
To Remington assuring me that there’s no more romance
Between them.

 

 

I should at least say hi,
But my voice is stuck.
All I can do is run my fingers,
Slimy with industrial pink soap,
Under the cold water.

 

 

“It’s okay.” She runs a comb
Through her unruly curls,
Considers her reflection,
Adds lipstick.

 

 

In the sanitary stink
Of the pizza-place bathroom
My heart forgets to beat.

 

 

“You know, though, maybe you should be more careful
About Rem than you are about your shins.”
She snaps the lipstick tube shut,
Takes a compact from her purse,
Consults the mirror.

Without stopping to sort
The meaning of Jane’s words,
Just grateful for the turn of her back
That releases my frozen feet,
I tiptoe out
Through the narrow corridor
Into the comforting blare
Of Denardio’s
Where I can bury my thoughts

 

 

In the buzz, grease, heat,

 

 

The press of Remington’s thigh
Against mine.

But he says that I inspire him
When I lie naked
On his bed.

 

 

He is choreographing
A new dance,
Though I cannot see
Where my scant, white self
Is reflected in the driving leaps,
The syncopated footwork
Of his ballet.

 

 

He didn’t ask me
If I was having fun
Amidst the pitchers and pizzas tonight
While he grinned and laughed
In his easy way
Around the table.

 

 

I call him Rem
Because everyone else does.
In my head
He is always Remington.

Large, expansive, smiling,
Fine-haired
Fatherly
Kind
Cruel.

The lovely princess steps of the
Sleeping Beauty
Wake my mind from its stupor
Of confusion.

 

 

We are given rehearsal skirts
To get the feel of our legs
Peeking from below the frothy folds
Of tulle.

 

 

I love learning this dance.
My arabesques are growing stronger

 

 

But my arms are never quite right.
I twist my wrists too much,
Bend my elbows too little.
Sometimes I cannot time
The ethereal, swirling ports de bras
To match my legs’ sixteen soft développés.
The music catches up to me
Or seems to lead.

 

 

Señor Medrano draws exasperated fingers
Through his already stand-up hair.

In the car
On the way back to his house
He clears his throat.
“Sara, you work hard, yes.
But on tour dis spring
Bonnie will dance Aurora.
She turn sharp! Yes?”

 

 

My mind paints Bonnie’s picture.
She moves stiffly,
A skeleton clown,
Graceless yet precise.
Can this be better
Than what I do?
That jerky scarecrow
Always with the band of white elastic
Around her waist?

 

 

“Sure,”
I squawk.
Feel my face burn,
Glad I’ve taken down my bun
So perhaps Señor cannot see
The color of my cheeks,

Though I do not know whether they have turned
To red or white.