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Darkroom Dancer (Free verse) by MacFrantic
Well darling Juliet was quite the catch.
You could see her in her lingerie,
pulling swigs off empty bottles.
And while she slept
the spiders crept around her frame,
as not to disturb her flawlessness.
But in the afternoons,
when the cranes enveloped her veranda,
She'd just watch a mugging
and sigh about the iniquities of city life.
Four years into a spouseless marriage
she became a widow to the world.
In the evenings though, she danced.
First she'd stand there, dear Juliet,
just loitering at the door
until the sun went down.
Once it did, she settled to the floor
and passed through the sliver of light.
Her darkroom was a red one,
where the foggy, pulsing siren
played warm colors on the walls.
The laboratory had various chemicals:
a photographer's playground, and Juliet,
she spun her arms and lolled her head,
grasped the unfinished memories,
and dashed them to the ground.
It was a wreck to watch intently,
but she came so close to chaos
that it was a frightening thing.
And had all the world watched
to see this wild atrocity,
they might have said she deserved it.
For outside these rooms of ours
is a shameful place.
To destroy it dancing would be ecstasy.
Come down and breath.
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