Renée K. Nicholson
~
Curtain Call
The pain behind the patella radiates
like light through a diamond, colorless,
clarity, the lock-jawed silence of stillness
points of princess cut stone on the soft pulp
of connective tissue. Remember
how you were once beautiful, icy,
like the city after December’s decadence &
finery. The clear cold of lake effect
snow, the steel exoskeleton of covered
over-street crosswalks. Of course the Pabst
drafty cool, plush red velvet cushions pillowed
a thousand glass slippers. Folds of the heavy curtain
pocket memories like the dust bunnies under
the couch, the uneven wood floor—
not home yet. Wings of aches:
ankles, hips, lower backs. Those old ropes
maneuver the scenery, where hurt &
love & sweat hover above the pit—
plucked strings, your ligaments & tendons.
The snow heaps outside, cold and heat fuse,
frothy breath like the head on a pint of beer
bottled in the city’s bricked heart. The bus
lumbers and knee twitches, past
the family apartments over
groceries, the smell of halupkis, dance
hall filled with old-fashioned polka,
past the closed frozen custard stand,
skirting the angry, ice-crusted lake.
The smooth vinyl beneath you, scanning
the flat northern town as if there were
answers, or even clues. The stars are not
gems, but the moon’s shine cleaves
the dark swath of sky over this town
named for natives long gone. So too, your
last stop, that lamppost where you depart.
~
Renée K. Nicholson lives in Morgantown, W.Va., splitting her artistic pursuits between writing and dance. She is assistant professor in Multidisciplinary Studies at West Virginia University and an American Ballet Theatre certified teacher. Renée was the 2011 Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State-Altoona. She is co-host of the literary podcast SummerBooks and co-founder of Souvenir: A Journal, and a member of both the Dance Critics Association and the National Book Critics Circle. Her work has been featured in many publications including Chelsea, Mid-American Review, Perigee: A Journal of the Arts, Paste, Poets & Writers, Crosstimbers, Naugatuck River Review, Honey Land Review, Dossier, Stymie, ABZ, Prime Number, Blue Lyra Review, Switchback, Fiction Writers Review, Moon City Review, Redux, Cleaver Magazine, Barely South Review, Saw Palm, Bluestem, The Superstition Review, The Gettysburg Review and elsewhere. Her collection of poems, Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center is forthcoming from Urban Farmhouse Press.
~
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