Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OF WOMEN: 2. WHO SHOULD DANCE, by ALICE MONKS MEARS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OF WOMEN: 2. WHO SHOULD DANCE, by                    
First Line: By night touching the jewelled frets
Last Line: In bone the very form of love.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Love; Women


By night touching the jewelled frets
of her webs they shuddered in caves
of their fears at the diligent spider death,
Saw in the skies demons, steel slaves
fish for the climbing-beyond-breath
silver fish, combing with fiery nets.

So they who are girls, hourly beguiled
by music, girls with white throats, hair
brushed bright, half-nymph with sandalled feet,
who should live by dance, through whirling air
their mobile grace define, repeat,
turn heavily, awkward now with child.

For they have dropped (forgot whereof
they were gathered) armsful of flowering
wishes, trivial, clover: their freight
of perishable dream — it being
their whole need now to recreate
in bone the very form of love.





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