Ballroom Dancers Of Darfur Poem by Bernard Henrie

They walk out of magazines
and radio speakers, children
from Darfur's solemn bush,
little herons of the desert,
bones that bump the dancers;
hard feet on the parquet floor.

The dancers shuffle to a stop,
ladies in serene threes and fives,
men round as punchbowls gape.

The children drift with the music
like smugglers through the city,
the fine dust of blowing Sahel
caked in cheek hollows, razor thin
eyebrows, ochre colored lips.

More arrive, exhausted travelers
mixing with country-club dancers;
they politely avoid chairs, blink;
they collect in corners, soundless.

I stumble over a dying cow, brown
as winter gloves, soft to the touch
peaceful, even elegant in this death,
dark eyes round as molded clay.
The visitors quietly gather around.
A child touches my shoulder,
the hand pats like a priest at a grave.