Dancing in the Shadows, by Raphaela Pavlakos

El Jaleo (The Spanish Dancer), by John Singer Sargent (USA) 1882

Dancing in the Shadows

​bent back, skirts hitched, her swathing costume of white
like a burial dress or wedding garment hovers
arms bent, wrists sharp and muscled, there is no fear of the shadows
that cling to the hollows of the dancer’s face
 
behind her, the accompaniment clings to life on the breath of a voiceless song
throwing their heads back, their faces pressed to light or dark
instruments cling to their bellies as if they will hold the souls
in their bodies as they play the fevered beats
 
behind her, her shadow swallows light, a monster in the guise of a winter wind
rolling and spinning, stomping reverberations from heeled feet to pocked floors
guitars that hang on plastered walls are a reminder of the music at rest
drained of life that players fill like vessels
 
she is a vessel for life
the women who watch her flurried, flushed face mimic her movements
wishing for the wild ecstasy of her exotic rhythm

Raphaela Pavlakos

Raphaela Pavlakos’s dissertation research is about Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee poetry and landscape as alternative sites of memory, using research-creation to intersect her scholarly and creative production, as well as finding ethical ways of reading Indigenous poetry as a settler-scholar. Her poetic work can be found in Talon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Word Hoard, and Sanctuary: A Cootes Paradise Anthology, and others. She also co-authored a self-published poetry collection called Mythopoesis in 2022 with Georgia Perdikoulias, which is available through Kindle Direct Publishing.


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