G-NT3806KSJP

Do Not Throw Away


   


I attend a works-in-progress showing, featuring new choreographers    

One dancer vogues in a morph suit and character shoes

Another throws silk flowers on the ground

The third deals mostly with their shadow

A mic pings at dog whistle pitch and the sound guy looks irritated

about spending his Thursday night here. I bought a ticket in advance

because I desperately needed something to do. It was a whole month

of heat shocking my brain like the comedown of an acid trip.

The flop of my nail bed 

like a door in a storm. I just don’t know

who deserves to be commended

for sustaining a voice for this many pages

who is not disposable



Margaret Saigh is a writer, dancer, and educator. She is the author of the chapbook CROSSED IN THE DARKER LIGHT OF TERROR (dancing girl press 2022), a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Pittsburgh, and the creator of circlet, a virtual poetry workshop. Her poems have been featured in Peach Mag, Plainsongs, and Figure 1, and are forthcoming in Calyx Journal and Exposition Review, among others.