(Dedicated To G.K.)

You get down to skin and bone

when you’re starving for approval.

When pleasing a God,

ritual offerings are demanded.

There is no hesitation in making the requested alterations

to reach another’s exacting perfection.

Now, how do you continuously manage to balance en pointe,

past the facial injections

and post breast implants?

Easy.

You simply saute to your own controlling, all-consuming life addiction;

an instantly, initially painless solution lifting you higher

than your professional and personal partner ever could, feeding your hunger for a steady diet of validating applause, enabling a delicately fused, symmetrically flawless skeleton to

complete flying Fouette turns-one after another after another after another-spinning, spinning,

spinning,

in a cyclonic maelstrom…

And when do you stop?

When you find yourself standing center stage-

 SOLO.

Facing an enraptured audience.

When every ounce of your remaining life is given to the grand jete-

a breathtaking spotlight pinnacle,

-forever closing the curtain on the air of a swan.

Michael A. Russo is a veteran Long Island public school teacher of 25 years. He is married to his beloved wife and has two remarkable children. His eclectic poetry is inspired by the gritty and realistic works of the 1970s. It reflects the many joys, absurdities, and tragedies of the human condition. He also takes pride in speaking for the silent, silenced, and forgotten.