by Christina Brown
Reflections of a Dancer Practicing Her Art in a Former Mental Hospital’s Church
They used to worship here,
between crowded meals and art sessions
or worse.
The dull plum floor used to be charted with pews
and there used to be a cross hanging above our low, dusty stage.
Maybe this is where they found their peace.
Their pews are gone, replaced with panels of black marley.
We took their cross down,
glued glass to the wall and brought in ballet bars
and we dance.
We find our peace here too.
The windows are too high to see through and they are covered with heavy
black curtains.
We throw the thick velvet open and let the sun fall into the room
and I feel them.
I feel their hope; I feel the refuge of this space.
I wonder if they ever got to open the windows.
I feel their belief in the divine,
in the sunlight, in the air, but also in my body.
Sometimes I lay on the marley,
sensing how temporary it is as the panels slide and pop apart under
my bones,
and wonder what will come next.
