The Recruiting Brochures Feature Grand Jetés
Joseph Mills
After class, she tucks herself
against a cinderblock wall,
arranging her dance shoes, pack,
and water bottle around her
like a barricade, and she cries,
silently, matter-of-factly.
If asked, she might not be able
to say why. She aches
in so many places and ways
it could be any of them or all
or none. It may simply be
this is the point in the day
she allows herself to cry.
She is on a tight schedule,
and has been for years. But
no one asks. It’s unremarkable.
She used to imagine
she would be a princess
in a fairy tale. She thought
the acceptance letter
a type of magic key,
but she hadn’t done the math--
all those other acceptance letters,
all those other magic keys,
every other girl in school
a princess as well,
and all those other schools,
and she hadn’t been familiar
with the actual fairy tales,
all of those dark stories
where the woman dances
until her toes come off,
leaving her hobbled for life,
or the woman is forced
to dance to death in red-hot shoes,
or the woman slices off her toe
to try to fit into the slipper,
or the woman is offered
amphetamines, diet pills, Adderall,
or the woman is just not
as technical, strong, beautiful,
desirable as those around her,
or the woman is unremarkable
in the beginning and stays so
until the story’s end.
She checks her watch,
from habit rather than need,
having long ago internalized
the schedule’s rhythms
and reconciled herself
to time’s remorselessness.
She gathers her gear.
Sometimes this is what it is
to be a dancer. It is having
expectations and desires
spun away in the centrifuge
of a studio’s coil of days
until what remains is simply
work so unremarkable
it’s painful; it is bracing
against a gray stone wall
for a few moments, then standing,
moving on, and returning
the next day and the next.
Joseph Mills
After class, she tucks herself
against a cinderblock wall,
arranging her dance shoes, pack,
and water bottle around her
like a barricade, and she cries,
silently, matter-of-factly.
If asked, she might not be able
to say why. She aches
in so many places and ways
it could be any of them or all
or none. It may simply be
this is the point in the day
she allows herself to cry.
She is on a tight schedule,
and has been for years. But
no one asks. It’s unremarkable.
She used to imagine
she would be a princess
in a fairy tale. She thought
the acceptance letter
a type of magic key,
but she hadn’t done the math--
all those other acceptance letters,
all those other magic keys,
every other girl in school
a princess as well,
and all those other schools,
and she hadn’t been familiar
with the actual fairy tales,
all of those dark stories
where the woman dances
until her toes come off,
leaving her hobbled for life,
or the woman is forced
to dance to death in red-hot shoes,
or the woman slices off her toe
to try to fit into the slipper,
or the woman is offered
amphetamines, diet pills, Adderall,
or the woman is just not
as technical, strong, beautiful,
desirable as those around her,
or the woman is unremarkable
in the beginning and stays so
until the story’s end.
She checks her watch,
from habit rather than need,
having long ago internalized
the schedule’s rhythms
and reconciled herself
to time’s remorselessness.
She gathers her gear.
Sometimes this is what it is
to be a dancer. It is having
expectations and desires
spun away in the centrifuge
of a studio’s coil of days
until what remains is simply
work so unremarkable
it’s painful; it is bracing
against a gray stone wall
for a few moments, then standing,
moving on, and returning
the next day and the next.
Photo by Adam Littman Davis