This is an untitled poem I wrote for my final exam for Modern Dance II class with Tina Wentzel my senior year at Colby College on May 5, 2005 (I found it on a crumpled up sheet of notebook paper). I spent a couple of months choreographing a dance piece which I would perform. But the night before the day I was to present the piece I realized that it was not the right piece... so I scrapped it and started over. 12 hours or so or later I had a dance and a poem. It's a "one shot" poem in that I wrote it in one sitting with no edits... I may edit this later on, but I think it's important to record the original here:
I feel extremely perishable today
Quite destructive
The self has to walk
the dog, change the diaper,
take the exam.
The eyes of fishhooks
in my skin and all the social
fisherman crank on my epidermis--
reel me up real tight
so I won't get away
so the tissue starts leaving the bone
like cotton candy.
Quite unadhesive.
The self has to write
the essay, do the practice, wash
the dishes, wash the hair, nail
the nail, trim the toes.
I have no boundaries now.
Bones. A maxilla, a mandible,
two femurs. But I must go.
I must function. No time for holding
I must brush the teeth
sleep the sleep
pray the prayer
eat the food on the table
sit in the chair one hour and 30 minutes
and erase and edit and run and smile
and eat and love and cry and
flick and kneel and pick and stoop
and stand and kick and click and pat and crack--
