for Juliet Prowse and Terry Leone
Is a rhetoric in the eye.
We come in love and leave in love
With the expert conjugation of limbs
And feathers, high-heeled shoes and slender
Light. “Ooooh it’s going to be a tough one
Tonight, Juliet.” The consonants
Of fabulous form play on the eye
As guitar strings, strummed,
Thrum the ear. And ooooh the fat
And spangled mind will dragoon
The stunning sentences, will grimly
Note each misplaced moue,
Each faulty flourish and clarify
The prepositional grace, the long and
Lovely floor line, the gorgeous
Hem. The structure is grand,
The floor covered with proud
and demotic stars. In perfect
Rhyme and the present tense
They announce their favored metaphors:
Passa Doble, Fox Trot,
The Samba and Rhumba,
And enhance their grammar
With fluid ornament. The mood
Of this discourse, periphrastic and plump,
Muscles up into lyrics of glamorous freight.
Silken transitions resonate in the air.
To meter and flare, substance
Is subordinate. God
How we love the dance.