The Dancer Poem by Alan Gould

My feet which are the keenest pencils
are writing quick parabolas
from the birth kick to the crab walk of old age.
Your applause is sweet,
but is no proof against that date.

How motherly the galaxies!
In dreams a cat's my nearest sister,
and on roofs we spin nightly, - the town
turned out, enthralled.
My body is their ideal.
They look at me.

and I am water they look at me
and I am a bursting constellation;
then a hush, while I perform tiptoe
for them across Death's flaky lip.