Paradise

Ariane Dreyfus

                                             —To Dominique Hervieu

               Snowing so truly!

                                             *

               Dancer,
               I always lay this word on what's about to sink.
               Quickly, feet!

               She comes in one body.

               Stage otherwise empty, strong blue.

               We rip it through music.

               The young drum smells of skin.

                                             *

               Sweater over head,
               I smiled because she smiled

               When Dominique entered the studio
               I had forgotten that somebody—
               She is.

               In socks, work starts gently but the pain hides already.
               Right away, pain elsewhere.

               Even closing your eyes: a live body.

               Fold in your chest, and back.
               My memory sinks almost painfully but by one shoulder, the dance draws you again. From one place moves places

               Where you go, a space:
               Your spine is its free wonder.

               For motion to exist, one must have gotten into it: you touch your nape briefly to show how.

               Tears stay inside their eyes
               Because you embellish the edges wildly
               —Now I'm but a window—
               Inside you are cherries
               Not visible but not gone

               Or sharing your thoughts so well
               —What I can hear is more beautiful
               than writing it—
               With feet never at rest
               Even in hands
               (They open always, discussion on the floor)

               Dominique Hervieu starts dancing again to explain years of work. We are suddenly silent. No church, no church will ever do it

               That dizziness filled with hope

               Then she sits back down
               Time for redness under the eye.

                                             *

               Snow, no more point in seeing it.


translated from the French by Elias Simpson and Corinne Noirot