The Snake Charmer’s Arms & Other Altered States
1. Temple Meditations
While belly dancing, bending deep into her thoughts, sibilant voices flowed through her: Always take your veil off slowly . . .. The more you work with your veil, it will become your friend . . .. Always wear pants beneath your tribal skirts . . . Never dance to the man, always dance to the lady . . . Yoga will make your spine strong . . . Open your heart center, and visualize white light shining from a beautiful jewel on your chest . . . Touching your hair while dancing is not an invitation, but never touch your body . . .
2. Kali’s Hands
Her violet hair fretted & feathered into wild turquoises & peacock blues as she danced to an off beat duet of noir accordion & violin. Her belly tat fluttered, & she tangled in her snake arms while her vintage python spine necklace wound tighter with each rushed note. At last, back to the audience, & facing the musicians, she flashed her glassy third eye, hissed profanities, & spun back around, poised like a swan.
3. Sugared Absinthe
Between barefoot can-cans in gothic tribal fusions of drums & zills, her gypsy consciousness skirted into the Moulin Rouge. Her palms flamed with candles, & her tongue sparked with sugared absinthe. Other times, tented in a pearl of sinuous silk veil swirls, she waved into the salty body of the ocean, giving birth to Venus.
4. Honoring The Women of Algiers
Lounging with her harem sisters in the lush of velvet tasseled pillows & tapestries in Delacroix’s envisioned canvas, she felt a mystical oneness. Exhaling houkah, her breath body danced with fluttering silks & jingling bangles as opium smoke floated through the Louvre.
5. Dark Night of the Soul
She was thrown off balance by the new moon as the wings of her soul flung open. She soothed herself by sloshing around beads in an ocean drum. During the alters of dusk & dawn, between the refined spaces of her thoughts, her body could never forget him.
6. Burlesque
She practiced burlesque glamour girl moves while listening to Jill Tracy’s “Evil Night Together.” Inside the mirror, she loved peeling off her satin opera gloves but hated boas stitched together with cheap turkey feathers. Once she inhaled a fluffed feather and just about choked, coughing for days. She always saved her peacock feather boa, pasties, & dusty rose ostrich feather fan for special occasions & the stage.
7. Cinnamon & Cocoa Butter
She ensconced herself in Middle-Eastern music. An ice cube slowly melted down her back while she slid her head through temple arms & shimmied her hips like a washing machine. During chest undulations, cool raindrops slid off the centers of her body. Her tips always doubled when she wore cinnamon oil & cocoa butter.
Alexandra Isacson is an Arizona State graduate who lives & works in the Phoenix area. Her writing has been nominated for both a Pushcart & The Best of the Net Anthology! Her work appears in >killauthor, Grey Sparrow Journal, Emprise Review, decomP, PANK, and other awesome places. |
 |