The Dancer

Class is over, the teacher and the pianist gone, but one dancer in a pale blue leotard stays to practice alone without music, turning grand jetes through the haze of late afternoon. Her eyes are focused on the balancing point no one else sees as she spins in this quiet made of mirrors and light— a blue rose on a nail— then stops and lifts her arms in an oval pause and leans out a little more, a little more, there, in slow motion upon the air.