There was a girl <br />who danced in the city that night, <br />that April 22nd, <br />all along the Charles River. <br />It was as if one hundred men were watching <br />or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God? <br />The yellow patches in the sycamores <br />glowed like miniature flashlights. <br />The shadows, the skin of them <br />were ice cubes that flashed <br />from the red dress to the roof. <br />Mile by mile along the Charles she danced <br />past the benches of lovers, <br />past the dogs pissing on the benches. <br />She had on a red, red dress <br />and there was a small rain <br />and she lifted her face to it <br />and thought it part of the river. <br />And cars and trucks went by <br />on Memorial Drive. <br />And the Harvard students in the brick <br />hallowed houses studied Sappho in cement rooms. <br />And this Sappho danced on the grass. <br />and danced and danced and danced. <br />It was a death dance. <br />The Larz Anderson bridge wore its lights <br />and many cars went by, <br />and a few students strolling under <br />their Coop umbrellas. <br />And a black man who asked this Sappho the time, <br />the time, as if her watch spoke. <br />Words were turning into grease, <br />and she said, 'Why do you lie to me?' <br />And the waters of the Charles were beautiful, <br />sticking out in many colored tongues <br />and this strange Sappho knew she would enter the lights <br />and be lit by them and sink into them. <br />And how the end would come - <br />it had been foretold to her - <br />she would aspirate swallowing a fish, <br />going down with God's first creature <br />dancing all the way.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-red-dance/
