dress for dance
by Alexina Dalgetty
it is a simple stretch of hessian rough worked thick warp thin weft a stutter in the faded fabric flawed and wrapped and wrapped again around this warm and often hollow belly around this beating heart machinery when fed a bare bone thin soup sour meal minimum it drives the face to laugh and offer surplus beer food smiles softness to those around but now my happy hessian skirts are crashing bumping into heaven and hell existing like a demon in between between the flesh that makes this belly and that heart your head and that one there and that one too that taunt and tumble drag me round and round I know they think not what they do this sweet release of egress from a bitter stint of toil I step I step I smell your sweat and his and his and hers and think I’ll suffocate and die the beer the heavy garlic air that man’s belches this ones’ spinning feet the sweat the sweet the sour he kicks she kicks my rough made skirts jump beyond my skin my heart my head I swerve he pitches I pause I swirl a ticking over in my belly tonight we’ll drowse thin dozing mischiefs in the wind against tomorrow’s moil
Alexina Dalgetty is proud to have been shortlisted in The Prose Poem’s inaugural competition. Her debut novel, The Cleaning Woman’s Daughter, was published in 2023 by Liquorice Fish Books an imprint of Cinnamon Press. She is currently working on a hybrid novel, A Crack In The Map.