Poetry in Pediatrics

Nov 2012

Something About the Dance

Anna Duberg, PhD

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2012;166(11):1037-1044. doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2012.328

Barefoot on the floor.
She is taking dance steps.
Not move away steps.
Not sorry to disturb steps.
Not walk away in shame steps.
Not hope you can't hear me steps.
But dance steps.

I was there and I couldn't stop thinking:
all this time you had it in you
the rhythms were already there
unreachable
now: reachable.

I was there this moment watching her
becoming more of who she is
becoming more than she thought she
could be.

Barefoot on the floor.
She is moving like the air is suddenly her own.
Not everybody else's air.
Not I’m sorry that I breathe air.
Not I hope you can't see me air.
But her own air.

And her body, wordlessly deserving
to be there
to be her own.

There is something about the dance,
she said,
something in how it makes me feel
and then she smiled.

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