by Jack B. Bedell

after Pina Bausch’s Das Frühlingsopfer

The dancers pull themselves through space,
across a stage covered in loose soil,
primitive, fecund, pagan, virginal, decomposed.
They fight gravity with every muscle
connected to their bones, fling their cells
across all distances. Struggle, contrapuntal
against Stravinski’s strings, always
there to slam them to ground. Sweat,
almost enough to wash away their
grace, more than enough to
draw dirt onto their bare skin. To mar
all innocence and joy. And then
the red dress these women pass
from hand to hand—a burden
of hope none of them want to wear,
a sacrifice each dancer would
chase away with movement, every
leap, every fall, every spin and twist
that much closer to a death they are
bidden to face so spring can bloom
along the horizon line, a death waiting
patiently for last steps to fall.

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Moist, Psaltery & Lyre, EcoTheo, and other journals. His work has been selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.