Poetry books stacked on the sofa
Poetry on the sofa

Poems by Joannie Kervran Stangeland
After the Dance
   Plié

   Relevé
   Rond de Jambe
   Adagio
   Waltz
   Priorities
   The Ground Star
   An Outside Chance
   The Project
   In Hoboken, New Jersey
   Confessions of a
     Pedestrian
   Jazz Class
   What Music Is
   To Dance
   The Past I Pass
   After the Dance

Other poems on the sofa

The sofa
Why a sofa?
My poe-query weblog
Books & anthologies
Friends to visit
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After the Dance


Plié

Tender, the knees release like a sigh
grown old before its time
Thighs part and widen
like water from its source.
Large muscles extend
from the bed of the pelvis
and its anchors. Secure in its socket,
the femur turns open
like the handle of a door.
Gravity sweetens the suggestion.

Given the nature of physics and joy,
down is delicious: a day at the river
or sleeping in late. A plié becomes
a mother opening her hours,
the fold of the soul to earth,
or the fall of a swing
that must rise again, but not yet.