Sunday, September 10, 2006

Ripping the Butterfly Cocoon

El Flaco asks La Mariposa to dance, but she looks at the face of her husband, and the storm that is there gives her answer.

She comes to the milonga week after week and sits with her hands in her lap on the outer fringe of the dance floor. Her silent husband is close. In the shadows they are hard to see. He does not dance. No one asks her to dance.

Later, we ask ourselves when it happened, but no one knows when La Mariposa begins to sit alone. Week after week, she comes away from the wall and the shadows, and her hands are no longer in her lap. Her fingers tap to the music. Men ask her to dance.

She wears an orange dress.

I sit beside her as Vida mia begins to play, and La Mariposa laughs.

A man comes across the floot, his intention obvious, and La Mariposa lights up. 'I had forgotten what it was like to like myself.'

3 comments:

Jean said...

No one ever comments on your lovely pros? Then I will! It's a wonderfully flowing commentary to keep those of us missing our Milonga tonight aglow with your words.

Thank you.
Jean

Lexa Roséan said...

great to see another tango blog through bestest blog.
abrazos
Tiger

Stan "the man" Zalesny said...

Your scenes, the prose, the emotion, is poetry. I read all the way through this and the others. Keep it going-words dance across the page, hesitate and wait to be read again and again. You are on my favorites page now.

S.R.