The dancer

I got tired of going in circles like some music-box ballerina
whose cruel child owner can't get enough
of that song that wails when he winds you up,
always watching,
hands always ready to turn that key at the start of each new day,
eyes always eager to send you spinning off in confused orbit to your dreams,
falling away,
too dizzy to stand,
arms thrown up in vain defense,
back arched,
trying to support the weight
until I snapped...

I snapped back up like a spoon in a food fight,
threw the lid across the room
and stepped out of this box that I live in;
that clotted air stuck in my throat
cleaned out as with a chimney broom,
washed down with the cerebral water that kept my mind afloat...

one
    two
          three,
                  step-
one, two.

one
      two
            three,
                    step-
one, two.

Reader, now listen,

I recount you
That tale of the ale of the gods,
They, who
Smiling behind azure veils
Built these walls,
Sky-blue.
Walk through, I strode to
The door, then they all turned to see...

this STRANGE being.

(Who
        is
          THIS,
                  now?)
(Don't know.)


The gods covered their nakedness,
Scrambled to set upon me a draught that would
(Help him forget before he remembers
What it's like inside; drown those thirsty embers!
Leave him gibbering joyfully out here
with no recollection we sent the)

Air. 
That's all I recall.
It came to me tumbling on the breeze,
It sang to me in whispers
Through the trees
With that sudden quiet loudness
In your ear, that breathy brush
what
makes your face flush
and
dig your nails
in and
Every muscle contracts to hold on tighter
While you shiver.
It broke over me like warm bathwater,
Laid me down a sleeping child in parents' arms
On a blanket of grass;
It tickles cold
Like an arm when you sleep on it wrong
and I drank
and I drank
as much as I could
and
it spilt o'er the banks
of my mouth
and poured down my cheeks
and I drank
more
'til those shroud-clouds
all gathered 'round to look down
at the fool upon the ground
who
drank more
and more
'til he giggled with
giddy, drunken glee:
I could not stop;
the wind (the earth's most fastidious bartender)
kept sliding drinks down the bar top
and they all went down smooth
so I
drank more
and the clouds spun together like twine,
a slate gray anchor rope keeping the earth down and
tearing me away
and I clung to it as the floor
went all see-saw beneath me,
threatening to roll me over
and off into space,
but then...

lift-off...

and then...

no trace.

One
      two
          three,
                  step-
one, two.

I woke in my house on the carpet.
The door had just blown shut:
I couldn't see who I sought,
Because
It was
All

spinning....
    spinning...
spinnn
n-ning....

Stop.