Emma Silverman

University of Massachusettes

Amherst

Oh Lord, can that woman stir her hips

Dancing like no one is watching

But preferring if they are

All her steps a Gypsy Meltdown

Calluses wide as candles

Round as red balloons

Sarah claps out candles

Keeps her panic medicine by her alarm clock

Children’s Bible Stories in the tape-deck

Dance moves on the floor

And, Lord, can she arch her body

A monument to beauty made out of orange fire and

What remained in Pandora’s Box

She is like the Fall given the gift of feet

The atoms that make up her blood

Know how to waltz

She sits in the living room knitting

Leans in towards the light and says,

“I eat hot dogs with relish”

Then resumes making the things that keep her warm

Once she dreamt that God breathed

The next savior into her womb

Her torso clad in geranium blue

Four moons passed without her

Then finally remembering her body

The world forgot how to believe in magic

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