En Masse

I held Diane in the dark. The choreographer had forbidden
non-functional speech in rehearsals, she wanted us to know each other
through other means, the two of us were not the chosen few with lights
installed on the underside of our sneakers, I wore the cherished red
linen overalls my boyfriend later shredded while farming, it's the only
part of the whole dance I remember—Diane's thin shoulders, 60 of us
pressed together we waltzed a slow shuffling waltz, one bony swaying
breath strobed by footstep lightning, I was so much taller, I could smell
her gray hair & her quick heart. I dropped out of the next dance
three days before it opened, we weren't paid, I was leaving everything
for my new boyfriend's fellowship in Spain, I resented the choreographer
for not remembering who I was after three productions, the first a small
cast & I wore her amazing black bustier, never had on anything like it,
but now I just needed to clean the kitchen & get out of town.

Extinction Studies

I  was  one  animal  and then another, sharpened until the
rope  of  the  arms  whipped through  the  shoulder  blades
into  every corner of the room and  out  the  windows.  And
the   fingers?  They  didn't  even   have   to  consent,  having
already  arrived  and  departed,  having  already whispered
yes  or  no  to  the  dust, to  the pothos, to the TV across the
street, having already yielded to its durable, devoted glow.

Extinction Studies

James teaches two ways to exit a position:
first trailing tendrils of our selves, ghosts
of old shapes described by a retreating
hand or look leaving an imprint fading
with exposure. The second I practice still:
the arm and the ribs and even the fingertips
won’t admit to having been anywhere
else. Walk walk gone walk walk snap walk
walk walk left: a space you never were.
That’s what I want, not the new position
but the breezeless escape.

Renée Lepreau is a graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing from UW-Madison and the recipient of the William W. Marr Graduate Prize in Creative Writing as well as scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Community of Writers. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, TYPO, Seneca Review, Exposition Review, Southeast Review, Cream City Review, and others.