Multiple reductive copy machine cha cha

“dance forms today are designed to stimulate the lusts and affections of the flesh”

A woman in business clothes, slim skirt, heels, and hose,
can constrain her climb to the copier top, on her toes:
lower paper tray, upper paper tray,
document handler,
mangle, staple, fold,
legal, A4, or 11 x 8 1/2.

She, green light beneath her, replicates the
cha cha cha pattern on the platen glass
that would shatter under taps, under one good stomp,
the way a work day stops or syncopates
dance: originals, collated copies, toner, cartridge.

Spontaneous the noise of the xerox cha cha
to inspire a climb to the xerox machine, to mount the copier,
multiply x over x. x/x is one. identity. Identity is a trick in math:

When I play music I think how I fit with the ensemble; when I dance,
I think of the beat,
where the music is, where it’s going, according to

diagrammed triangles for the fancy part, two pairs of two shoes,
square heeled broughams, tiny triangles for sharper heels,
backwards.

The xerox steps capture xerox,
capture quick feet, xerox strange shadows,
legs like trunks or stems up skirts, round
shadows on the copies and shadows on the ceiling
dancing with whom, whose image,
lights focused on the loci of cha cha.

Who is xerox but identity turned copious, sex, x over x,
identity, one? two? Fancy footwork or deviation
from some basic pattern of steps learned, approaching
the true meaning of beat, regular pulsation.

How else would she get up on top of that pedestal
with a beacon built in, an image repeating, receding,
for the other to reflect over and over. Reflection is iterated,
to shrink down to a single point, a fixed point, caramba,
a single path light could follow forever and still reach her eye.

“slow slow quick quick slow”.

in moving the feet, the toes should contact the ground before the
heel but the foot should be near horizontal.

A dancer creates an accent whenever she takes a step. But she can create a strong accent by making a step larger than usual, by delaying the step slightly and then stepping quickly to arrive on the beat. A dancer can also accent a step in some dances by stomping his foot or by making unusual moves with his or her upper body. (Some dances allow more freedom in this respect then others. In certain smooth dances, the rule is to “not make noise when you step.” But that rule is not always the case, as in swing when a good stomp can provide a needed accent.)

Grey. Girl

Gray of some doves, pigeons,
girl in a grey frock, smock, dress,
young woman in a suit, houndstooth, tweed,
black watch plaid,
two birds struggling beneath
a net.

F.A.O. Schwartz sells grey M&Ms,
two colors grey, to take in like souls of insurance men.
I have taken them in. I looked out through grey eyes
at pavement, bleak skies, the coming storm,
the color man made, the color of silos filled with grain
at the railway depot. I am not so plain, waiflike,
grey-soft as texture (which is pleasure),
not dark or fog cloaked,
not eyes-closed.

Quote by Zinaida Hippius.

Pink Girl

Cropped with pinking shears,
peonies with scalloped edges, or pinked,
pink a hole / in eyelet / stabbed;

not lace, peek-a-boo material,
a net, or noose, or snare,
a cord, string, knot, tie;
frills and flounces, knickers nicked from K-Mart.

Don’t nick
yourself shaving, pneumatic girl,
hyperinflated
ballerina, cheerleader
bouncing pony tails, pin curls,
pig tails,
in the clique, picked for tag,
petit fours and tea, clementines and pips,

pig pink, oink, hot dog,
boat, fish, salmon, pike, kippers

rose colored glasses,
pack all your troubles in an old kit bag,
Pollyanna,
Mai Tai, Singapore Sling,
a nip, a strip bar, slit.

D’Or

Not the player in the middle who hooks the ball,
a madam, a lewd bawdy house denizen, cyprian,
but gilt, to the hilt,
“that into which a sword sinks.”

Subtle, sentimental spirit
ignorant of fine feeling
survives despite adversity:
dolls decorate the bed.
Eyelet curtains shield demimondaines from the street,
or the street’s eyes from them.

Cocotte. Customers are not so bad,
their balls are brass, livers made of bourbon, scotch,
golden elixir after four, after midnight, after the bars close.
Gilt keeps hearts shiny,
working, walking, through the watches of the night.

Miss Align

If she falls to the right,
her left remains jagged,
her right arm as we face her
outstretched, pointed to California,
knee akimbo, foot flexed,
skirt and shirt blown westward,
pressed against one side, almost flattened,
flowing from the other.

The opposite’s more usual,
justified. She begins
shoulders back, chin up.
If she can tuck her buttocks and
thrust her breasts —
no spine curvature unless in service of the flat.

The pole up her ass is straight
at least, and bodies are generally
symmetrical. She faces us,
turns away, not crouched,
and all the name shapes for her body
are based on this display:
bright squashes, exotic fruit, all the best gourds.

She finds resting on her back
makes her abdomen seem taut.
I’ve wondered — has she? —
about the coffin’s mystery: what does rigor mortis
do to breasts? Does the embalming process foster–
is some sort of doe-like posture?

To what aspect does the lid align,
the cap, the top? Miss arbitrary line,
flat sky, small god.