Isadora's Scarf (Isadora Duncan 1877-1927)
Clever Death.
This time you’ve outdone yourself,
putting aside cool flesh as one might
shrug off a coat too warm for
the season, settling into spools of silk
& lace, yielding to deft hands
which twisted you like a conundrum,
tortured your form into Byzantine
designs finished off with a dusting
of ghost-pale sequins like stars
awash in a poppy field, flashy &
alluring as the polished limbs
of a dancer~ or the dancer
herself whose eye you caught
from a posh storefront one delirious
afternoon when a friend’s purse
insured pleasure, not price,
was the only object.
& you had time to perfect
the illusion of humility, lying
quiet as a serpent on bare floors
where you were cast or
crushed against burgundy
cushions on a suitor’s divan.
All those black hours suspended
in her cherry armoire,
perilous music of insect wings beating
air around you. But you learned
patience & were not troubled
by such mad flight or wind
which lifted you light
as the footfalls of one mesmerized,
stirred each delicate tassel as if
you had no will
of your own, resting upon her
fragrant shoulder, caught
in warm gold at her wrist.
Now she flings you out
& around herself like a hoop of fire
she would pass through unharmed
as a salamander, then steps
into the Bugatti which belches
blue-grey smoke toward autumn sky, sun
knifing off each chrome spoke,
& she coils you once around
her throat, opulent yards left to spill
over the door like a train of blood,
fringe kissing the wheel
upon which she will be broken.
This time you’ve outdone yourself,
putting aside cool flesh as one might
shrug off a coat too warm for
the season, settling into spools of silk
& lace, yielding to deft hands
which twisted you like a conundrum,
tortured your form into Byzantine
designs finished off with a dusting
of ghost-pale sequins like stars
awash in a poppy field, flashy &
alluring as the polished limbs
of a dancer~ or the dancer
herself whose eye you caught
from a posh storefront one delirious
afternoon when a friend’s purse
insured pleasure, not price,
was the only object.
& you had time to perfect
the illusion of humility, lying
quiet as a serpent on bare floors
where you were cast or
crushed against burgundy
cushions on a suitor’s divan.
All those black hours suspended
in her cherry armoire,
perilous music of insect wings beating
air around you. But you learned
patience & were not troubled
by such mad flight or wind
which lifted you light
as the footfalls of one mesmerized,
stirred each delicate tassel as if
you had no will
of your own, resting upon her
fragrant shoulder, caught
in warm gold at her wrist.
Now she flings you out
& around herself like a hoop of fire
she would pass through unharmed
as a salamander, then steps
into the Bugatti which belches
blue-grey smoke toward autumn sky, sun
knifing off each chrome spoke,
& she coils you once around
her throat, opulent yards left to spill
over the door like a train of blood,
fringe kissing the wheel
upon which she will be broken.