“Choreography,” by Michael Symmons Roberts
October 22, 2010
This one smashes my face. That’s no wrestler’s move; so it’s bare-knuckles now.
“Choreography” is in Michael Symmons Roberts’ book, Corpus (Cape Poetry, 2004).
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Belly up, it's A Poetry Feed. 
“Somehow he slid my hip out of its bone cup.”
I think this is my favorite selection of poems so far. Thanks for sharing them.
Symmons’s poems are very tightly constructed.
Are the rest of the poems in Corpus arranged in narrow stanzas?
That’s terrific, isn’t it? Bone-cup for socket is very Norse or Anglo-Saxon. I like to think that with a turn of phrase like that Mr. Roberts is claiming this story as part of his own mythos, like painting Bible-figures in the clothing of the painter’s own ancestors or neighbors.
And, yes, lots of short lines in 2, 3, or 4 line stanzas. A few longer stanzas in the book, not many longer lines.