SpanishDancer

Spanish Dancer

by Rainer Maria Rilke

As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white

flickering tongues before it bursts into flame:

with the audience around her, quickened, hot,

her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.

And all at once it is completely fire.

One upward glance and she ignites her hair

and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress

into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace

from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long

naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.

And then: as if the fire were too tight

around her body, she takes and flings it out

haughtily, with an imperious gesture,

and watches: it lies raging on the floor,

still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die -

Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet

exultant smile, she looks up finally

and stamps it out with powerful small feet.