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On Her Mettle
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(Degas' Sculpture) The way the bronze silk sagged against your skin in layers, in that hollow just below your knee, caught my eye--though why I'd look this long and closely at such a young girl's leg tugged against my gaze now noting how your wrinkled shin inclined ahead of the other knee bent to bear your weight--slight weight--through hips cocked and skirted in aged tulle. Hands hooked behind you, arms back for balance, near flat chest sloping that way, too. Then fabric again, a ribbon taming the flow of your pony tail cast forever. Above all, the poise of your face, that hauteur with which your eyes have ignored such connoisseur scrutiny since 1880, when Degas eyed someone resembling you in Paris, in the flesh, in the midst of practice when her garter slipped. Jim Bill |