A Dance at Midnight by Lindsey Schaffer

Lindsey Schaffer is a current undergraduate at The College of Saint Benedict. When she is not reading or writing she is running, cooking, or travelling.


A Dance at Midnight

The moon calls her to dance
Igniting a fire in her heart
That can only be extinguished in the heart of the forest
Where, surrounded by the tinder of stinging cicada songs and siphoned starlight
She dances around a bonfire of fever dreams
Her freckles fuze with the silty earth
As fireflies and spotted frogs emerge to join her jovial dance
A spark of calculated movements, extending one arm after the other
The blood in her veins attune to that of invisible violins and ancient drums
Materialized in the friction of a nearby stream and the beating of her heart
Above her the sky smiles, its teeth a cooling translucence of stars and mist
Here she is called to a dance
And so she does.