The New York Postcard Sonnets
by Philip Dacey

16.

Watching the dancers warm up: itself a show.
Paul Taylor, Lincoln Center, Damrosch bandshell.
Black backdrop against which they’re Greek, a frieze in slow
motion: reach, curl, step, slide, twist, bend, rise, roll,
even arabesque (modern’s base in the classical).
They coax their bodies into obedience,
let flesh feel its way gently down into animal
ease and grace. Their bodies are their instruments.

Now they do more: leap, kick, tumble, flutter feet.
Someone’s all rubbery wit; another’s all spin.
How can a body do that, or that, or that?
May the show before the show go on and on.

What touches me so about this prelude, practice?
Ah, it’s Keats’ unravished bride before the kiss.