Carmen 50

We were listening to American Beauty
and she was dancing the way that women can,
with her hands over her head and her wrists twisting,
and her hips pushing her dress around and her feet making slow circles
while I talked at length about one of the plays of Euripides.

I did not know why I was talking and her hair was spinning
with her body and shadows made storms on the pine floor
and something about the way her ankle looked in the pale light
made me shut up for a second.
She stopped dancing and looked at me curiously.
She knelt to the floor so that her eyes were level with mine and said,
“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you dead?”