Isolation
They keep those most violent in isolation
Deemed punishment severe
Meant to deprive the spirit of much needed companionship
Declared a necessity for mental health
Why would it not be?
But these inmates have committed crimes against humanity,
Violated community standards in grotesque and horrifying
ways.
They have always been isolated.
Solitary confinement is nothing new.
Community depends on compassion and understanding
Empathy, loyalty and love.
Those in isolation have come into the world
Unable and ill-equipped to embrace the ties that bind
They find comfort in isolation
No need to pretend
To try to conform
To bend the rebellious will
To be other than what they are
Isolation calms the jumbled mind
And brings a smile of satisfaction.
She enters stage
left, a vision in white chiffon
Long lithe legs
spiral across the stage
Performing
pirouette after pirouette:
Singles and
doubles, sensual and smooth,
Every beat of
music filled by movement:
The tilt of her
head, her fingers extended
Amid turns defying
dizziness.
One final
combination, feet fluttering and flying,
Before she leaps
offstage,
Back arched, her
trailing left leg lifting to touch her head.
He emerges from
the wings, a shock of blonde hair and raw masculinity,
Grandly soaring,
with gravity-defying grace, energy unleashed,
Circling the stage
with precision, power and strength,
Spinning and
leaping, higher and faster,
Landing
majestically center stage to thunderous applause.
She enters with
coy demure grace, a series of arabesque turns
To capture his
attention
Staccato footwork
accentuates the swirling soft skirt,
Shifting and
swaying fluidly from side to side.
She balances en
pointe, as he offers his hand,
Her only support
as she slowly glides her foot along her leg,
Higher and higher,
extending it skyward.
Holding the pose
before a shift in posture,
She bends her
torso towards the floor,
Her forehead
brushing her knee.
She rises and
pivots, his arm encircling her waist,
Leaning into his
strength,
Implicitly
trusting the arms that now thrust her high above his head,
Arched back, head
dipped low,
He holds her for
all to admire
Before she slowly
slides down the length of his body,
Intimate and
erotic, a lover’s embrace
One last series of leaps and pirouettes,
One last lift,
Arms and legs
extended,
She holds her pose
once again high above his head,
Carried
triumphantly across the the stage
As the last note
sounds and the curtain descends.
Now
This moment is all that matters
As it seamlessly slides into the next...
This instant and all that it holds...
A perpetual now
Stretching effortlessly through the
minutes and hours...
Tomorrow is a lifetime of anticipated
moments
Forged from the infinite progression of
now...
Link upon link, welded together,
Fashioning the armor of the past
Emblazoned with joy and sorrow, strength
and weakness
To be remembered without regret...
Or with dried tears...
This instant only is all that is real
The future yearned for and imagined
The past irrevocable and irretrievable.
Kathleen Chamberlin is a retired educator living in Albany, New York. She turned her attention to writing creatively during the quarantine period of Covid-19 and her writing has appeared in both print and online journals and anthologies.
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