AN INVITATION

By: Hunter Christian

Dancer paid her tribute

A shyness too shy for pretense

Sensuously seductive in form

Still, her hands trembled about

Too expensive the penance for a girl’s doubt

Her mother paid dearly before her

Grandmother too

And, too many generations to be catalogued

The accountants for the many as for the few

Whom settled accounts willed onward

On parchment paper in the soul

Feather pens dried steadfast in the inkwell

They all toppled hardways down

To the stage to where they fell

Like the girls whom all toppled in their time

Whom grew into women

Whom grew into matriarchs

Whom died when the lottery called their number

From the man’s hand who rotated the basket’s tumbler

Dancer bowed and smiled

She loved and begrudged some too

Her hair grayed slowly as beauty dictated

That sorority of the few

She sighed when sighs were called for

She laughed to thaw cold boredom

She enriched the hope of the poor

O’ dearest Dancer in the tour

Call me your dancer

For today, for tomorrow - forevermore.