The Pole to its Dancer, by Ethan Leonard

Screenshot from Japanese anime show, Yuri!!! on Ice, 2016. Yuri!!! on Ice is a Japanese sports anime television series about figure skating. The show is produced by MAPPA, directed by Sayo Yamamoto and written by Mitsurō Kubo.

The Pole to Its Dancer
     For Katsuki Yuri

Look, there is only one way this is going to go:
After sixteen flutes of champagne, you’ll approach
Viktor, say, “if I win this dance-off, please be my coach,”
and soon you’ll forget there was even a yes or no.
I'm not about memories. I'm slim steel. The room spins
when I attend any event. I've flipped men upside down
too many times to count to have a reason to count
even you. But ice skating was never a matter of reason,
was it, Yuri? Does your head hurt, is your gut telling you
this was a bad idea? Try to throw up with your head up,
and it only makes a mess of your good pant cuffs.
Yūri, let yourself go but hang on. Love, even true
love, can slip. Your program requires four quads.
If you’re as dizzy as you were then, I've done my job.

Ethan Leonard

Ethan Leonard is a second-year fiction MFA student at the University of New Hampshire. Previous poems of theirs have been published with Star 82 Review, Mead, The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review, and others. They can be found tweeting at @autonomousbagel.