High Chair

Bring a high chair for girlhood.

Bring a high chair for girlhood cries.

Night’s river has a small, beautiful daughter.

She is shredded on the water.

She is wheeling, rising

and quitting the trees.

She will put out the lamp;

let loose the river.

She will fly to the sun, then

crash at the feet of the cliff.

Carry her to the mound

and bury her in the field.

Michele moves in a fit of wailing energy -

shredding, wheeling, rising, quitting then

 falls, without warning, to the ground.

She is both daughter and river.

from A Lily Lilies

Poems by Josey Foo, Notes on Dance by Leah Stein