Where Is The Fairy Tale Bread You Kept In Your Pocket

[on Tanaquil LeClercq and the recent film on her life-]

where is the fairy tale bread you kept in your pocket

I sighed to my shadows between sun and sun.

pearl, in the equipoised moment shone the dancer

but the dance was gone.

and have you retreated, too, my angels?

counting the crosses on the hills.

then who is there to mourn

these gestures falling away too

early from her heart's white valentine

she never said or

it isn't usual my soul, slipping

from the peach and the blue perch of it

this way-to fly again.

and the vivid rose falling through Space

in the odd dream

dismissed at breakfast, buttering her croissants

and laughing maybe, on a dare.

that could have been

but who could know

wandering from one care to the next,

had wonder fled or majesty

from the jeweled match

struck in the dark I said

the collapsing of images,

could anyone explain

on the inmost, ever.

this- shattering.

rare silver, pink and green and a violet of

an unearthly sheen perhaps,

the elegance of cream,

not black and white

arise in pure trajectory

where the dancers whirled from sight-

when the skies have turned to pearl-

the clouds fall, the orchid distances.

mary angela douglas 22 june 2014;rev. 23 june 2014