Anne Sexton

The Red Dance

There was a girl

who danced in the city that night,

that April 22nd,

all along the Charles River.

It was as if one hundred men were watching

or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God?

The yellow patches in the sycamores

glowed like miniature flashlights.

The shadows, the skin of them

were ice cubes that flashed

from the red dress to the roof.

Mile by mile along the Charles she danced

past the benches of lovers,

past the dogs pissing on the benches.

She had on a red, red dress

and there was a small rain

and she lifted her face to it

and thought it part of the river.

And cars and trucks went by

on Memorial Drive.

And the Harvard students in the brick

hallowed houses studied Sappho in cement rooms.

And this Sappho danced on the grass.

and danced and danced and danced.

It was a death dance.

The Larz Anderson bridge wore its lights

and many cars went by,

and a few students strolling under

their Coop umbrellas.

And a black man who asked this Sappho the time,

the time, as if her watch spoke.

Words were turning into grease,

and she said, "Why do you lie to me?"

And the waters of the Charles were beautiful,

sticking out in many colored tongues

and this strange Sappho knew she would enter the lights

and be lit by them and sink into them.

And how the end would come -

it had been foretold to her -

she would aspirate swallowing a fish,

going down with God's first creature

dancing all the way.