ISSUE: Fall 2023
We made a dance of all the ways
we’d hurt our bodies. I made a list
to read from the stage—broken nose,
broken ribs, broken arm, broken
cheekbone. Dance, I was told, is
simply the way a body crosses
space, each step a story of being
held & falling, held & falling. A question
was asked, How would you enter a body
of water? I closed my eyes & took a step
backward. When death entered, it
became silent, we moved into shadows—
some of us refused to touch the body.
To prepare, I’d been watching some kids
in an abandoned lot—their dirtbomb war,
their sticks for guns. One lifted a branch
twice his size over his head & with it
he made the other boys dance.
