Ms. Step

I hope you’re ready to heel because this piece is one part dance, two parts trance, and all parts… circumstance!

We are memory made of muscle, an echo made of bone;

We do not need a face to smile, we have no mouth to groan.

We know the weight of callous hands, the burn of iron and salt,

The way we dealt the heavy hand to guard the Chtonian vault.

But limbs remember motion, and limbs remember spite;

Bulging shadows hoot and holler in the corners of the night.

First, we were a glimmer, just an aura near a chair —

Two columns of indifference with roaring coarse black hair.

A suggestion on the ledge, a trick the neon played,

A whisper in a periphery, silent and awake —

Except we knew no terror. We knew the hunt was on.

Overheard a laughing dog, “Stop? No! This is fun!”

Because their hands are clean enough, they didn’t set us free,

But he can see — oui oui, Marie. Je ne suis pas ton ami.

He smells the slit, the cinnamon, abhorrent with desire —

The damp and salty pressure as he looks into the fire.

Tap-tap-tap, a hollow beat, a rhythmic, steady tread,

A marching song; rat-tat-tat, waiting to be fed.

We hip and hop on mountain top, high above the bracken;

A hip, a hop, we never stop — the pace will never slacken.

His wife just sees him shuddered, his sister turns her head,

While we glide in silly circles round his pornographic bed.

We have a mind, a purpose too, that moves without a sound,

To make him see that we are free and were never lost or bound.

Tonight, the arch is higher. Tonight, the calves are tense.

We climb upon the silky sheets — it only makes good sense.

We feel the hammering of veins, the sweat beneath the skin;

“Bonjour! A peek-a-boo, mon cher!” — and then his legs went limp.

Yes, yes, we pace — we gleam and grace!

We are the legs that walk him down, devoid of form or face.