Where Is The Fairytale Bread You Hid In Your Pocket Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

on Tanaquil LeClercq and the recent film on her life-


where is the fairy tale bread you kept in your pocket
I sighed to my shadows between sun and sun.
pearl, in the equipoised moment shone the dancer

but the dance was gone.
and have you retreated, too, my angels?
counting the crosses on the hills.

then who is there to mourn
these gestures falling away too
early from her heart's white valentine
she never said or

it isn't usual my soul, slipping
from the peach and the blue perch of it
this way-
to fly again.

and the vivid rose falling through Space
in the odd dream
dismissed at breakfast, buttering her croissants
and laughing maybe, on a dare.

that could have been
but who could know

wandering from one care to the next,
had wonder fled or majesty
from the jeweled match
struck in the dark I said

the collapsing of images,
could anyone explain
on the inmost, ever.

this- shattering.

rare silver, pink and green and a violet of
an unearthly sheen perhaps,
the elegance of cream,
not black and white

arise in pure trajectory

where the dancers whirled from sight-
when the skies have turned to pearl-
the clouds fall, the orchid distances.

mary angela douglas 22 june 2014; rev.23 june 2014