What Is It Like to Get Punched in the Face?

Sometimes when a ballerina gets a big head

about her little feet, her perfect pirouetting,

or the way pink flatters her teeny waist,

the bitter ballerinas gather in the shadows

of the stage, signal the lighting guy,

and suddenly they spin into spotlights.

Seizing the revolting, revolving wench,

they catapult her—their arms

a cannon—shooting her, tangled feathers and hair,

thirty feet into the air. They step away—

one two, one two—and just before she lands

and her lights go out, the lights go out,

sparing the crowd the sight of the twig

snapping. Of course ballerinas don’t really do this—

they just put chocolates in her bag—but if they did,

when she face-planted, she’d know what it’s like

to take a right hook to her swanny bill.