POEM
Four and a Half Dancing Men
She knows how to fold
and turn the paper,
guiding the scissors with care
to create for her son
five little dancing dolls.
Toe by toe, hand in hand,
ring a ring a roses,
watch them caper
across the plain and up,
up over the mountain,
five happy men
to amuse a small boy in bed.
So cross. So bored. For
all that, a little blond god,
with the shifting realm
of his risen knees to govern.
The fauna buried in his
landslides, the cities
swallowed by his earthquakes
no longer divert him.
He monitors the marching
of five chained men
with silent intensity,
grave as his liquid eyes.
Up and down, up and down,
his to command,
one, two, three, four
manikins spring by.
He tears from the fifth
an arm, and then a thigh.
The troupe trips on,
though sagging at one end.
Four and a half dancing men.
And the half he made
with an act of his hand
seems to please him best.
He smiles. The same
can be done with the rest.
Four blind men, and a half,
unafraid, unafraid.
Anne Stevenson, "Four and a Half Dancing Men" from Poems 1955-2005. Copyright © 2005 by Anne Stevenson. Reprinted with the permission of Bloodaxe Books Ltd. www.bloodaxebooks.com
Source: Poems 1955-2005 (Bloodaxe Books, 2005)
Born in Cambridge, England, Anne Stevenson moved between the United States and the United Kingdom . . . MORE »
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