The Dancer’s Zoo

The dancers, their years and tons

and yards of flesh-so much

mortality in motion, so much

anxiety aquiver to the strokes

of rock and roll-shake it,

shake it for oh what a night, shake

an amazement, just one more time.

The floor does crack up

to keep from crying.

You love them, the dancers,

magnified cartoons of health,

the flutter of their greasy flab,

their bloated butts and breasts

ballooning over tiny painted feet.

You love them, the dancers,

like elephants, pimping hippotami,

mastodons trained to play

proletarian jazz or body-music

to disguise the prostitution of retreat.

At Dorothy’s Medallion, the dancers

gyrate to the tunes of grotesque taste,

unempowered to purple sequin, glove,

or otherwise prince off their shame; so,

black to the core, they dwarf your lust,

seducing the lies for which you daily pray.

Jerry W. Ward Jr.