Danse Macabre
Susan McLean

The dancers, taut as bows,
burn in their joyous fire.
They whirl, entwine, and pose
in friezes of desire.

No skeletons appear
to shock the celebration.
The dancers, bowing, hear
a rapturous ovation.

Outside, the wind blows colder.
Although she’d rather linger,
she senses on her shoulder
the tap of a light finger.

And though she came alone
and doesn’t need a ride,
a shadow, thin as bone,
attends her, stride for stride,

then leaves her, still denied.
But the end is not in doubt.
The skeleton inside
eventually wants out.

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Susan’s notes: “I wrote this poem around Halloween, after attending a performance by Ailey II, the junior corps of dancers in the company founded by Alvin Ailey. Though there was nothing sinister about any of the dances I witnessed, I was reminded of medieval images of the Dance of Death, in which skeletons appear to people in the midst of their daily routine to summon them to death. One of the most memorable portrayals of that theme occurs at the end of Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal, and I have seen it portrayed as well on the wooden bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland. The poem is written in three-beat lines, which evoked, to my mind, a stately waltz. It originally appeared in THINK Journal and appears now in my latest collection of poems, Daylight Losing Time.”

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Susan McLean is a retired English professor from Southwest Minnesota State University. She has published two poetry collections, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Latin poems by Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her third poetry book, Daylight Losing Time, is out now, published by Able Muse Press.

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Danse Macabre Susan McLean

Danse Macabre
Susan McLean