When at twelve I stood stock still
on the straight chair in the dressmaker’s
dining room, I did not relevé nor
plié nor hold my arms in a graceful
oval over my head, but kept them
folded close to my flat chest and
barely breathed while she poked pins
into the satin or taffeta of bodice
and skirt and the scratchy petticoats
of tulle that stood out stiff from
my undeveloped hips. Later, after
the mortification of forgotten steps
and awkward executions, the curtsies all
over and the lights of the recital hall
dark, those confections of fluff and
ruffle were crumpled and stuffed
into tall cylindrical cardboard cartons
that resembled overgrown hatboxes.
They stood in the corners of my closet
for years, upright as the dead poets
in Westminster cathedral, skeletons in
a musty catacomb, religiously preserved
until my mother died, when they pirouetted
unceremoniously into a dumptruck, then
made a grand jeté into the landfill.