The photograph's hand-printed in the old style, 
tinted, with wavy edges. It shows a long-legged dancer 
in mid-step. One toe shoe stabs a lake of shadow 
as if she’d fallen angel-fashion from the clouds 

and caught herself before the second rise. 
Her other leg shoots up toward heaven, 
generously daring the offstage veil of darkness to doubt. 
It’s a painterly, numbered print, bordered wide 
and titled “Tango” in faint pencil marks. 

Sepia light inscribes her impassive face 
and the vee her out-thrust arms make at her chest 
although the stage at large is bare and dark. Hair 
sleeked in a bun, her head tilts back, hey-ho, 
her laced-tight black silk torso parallel 
to the sea-gray floor below. Strength plumps 
her taut neck tendons. How she fills up, 
no centimeter wasted, with yearning 

and some unnamed joy suppressed at cost. 
Her long and muscled legs gracile with light, 
brushed sleek with shadow. Both her arms 
push out, extended, elbows locked 
to shove away the darkness. We 
are privileged to see what must be effort, 
but feels like passion. We the audience, 
who hold our breath. Convinced 

that what she feels, we feel as well. That we 
could lift her from the frame and hold her 
in one hand, and drink the heat she radiates, 
so far away, a palm-size sun.