Breath & Shadow

POETRY

PETRA KUPPERS

Contact Improvisation

Drags her foot, languid, with a stutter,
ankle sweeps the ground, a little vibrato on the toe
and she dances, her fingers float up, her chin down.

If you catch her carefully on the marley,
handbreadth beneath her left subscapularis,
your weight hangs in the balance.

You move together: floor dancer, stepper,
the guy with the wheelchair lays a casual curve
crutch girl kicks up the cane in a grand round

blind bloke connects round metal and a clavicle's tip
sleight of hand, quick fingers float into song:
bodies stretch over and now

into contact.

Levitation: gaps disappear in the light

You can see inside.