Pirouettes

What if things were diff’rent
If I hadn’t made that choice
Realised one potential me
But never found my voice?

Who might have been noticed
If I’d stuck to dance instead
Stayed thin and fairly limber
Training arms and feet, not head?

Would my first rebellion
Have led me to a Vet?
A change of scene, a childish dream
Escape without regret?

Or would life have been over
Twenty-six, a dying swan:
Now teach a bunch of children
To repeat mistakes, anon?

If no Vet, then no sample –
Talking point at interview
One misleading good example
Of something I’d never do?

Would I then have been granted
Any funding from the State?
Told to take the place they offered
And discover, just too late

That this was not what I wanted
As I struggled to fit in
Surrounded by the privilege
Of ignorant offspring?

My experience of teaching
At the tender age of six
Underlining hollow preaching
From a very diff’rent mix?

Would a lack of education
Have encouraged common sense?
Or constraint of situation
Left me sitting on the fence?

Would my schooling have consisted
Of bad habits and the barre
As I fought to hide intelligence
And keep my weight sub-par?

Could I ever have attempted
The exams I sailed through
Would I ever have been tempted
To seek out such pastures new?

Might my travels have been over
Long before I lived abroad
Would I ever have considered
A bouquet my just reward?

Would it matter, my opinion
Would the world have learnt to care
For the views of ballerinas
Who were talkative as air?

If I’d lived my life less boldly
Would I really have been me
Or would taffeta and greasepaint
Have been all there was to see?

We’ll Discuss it Over Dinner

I talked to avoid confrontation
Though practic’ly mute as a child
Postponed arguments with conversation
Changing subjects when tempers weren’t mild

That is how I once took up the trumpet
Said the first thing that entered my brain
When the atmosphere eating was honed to a point
As the adults were driving me sane

When I stepped in to cut off their fuses
Much the same as diffusing a bomb
There was never the time for new ruses
As absurd comic timing ploughed on

By expressing an int’rest in something
At a tangent from what came before
They were forced by convention of dining
To allow me to take to the floor

Over dinner I failed to digest much
Of the victuals that cooled on my fork
In my vigilant state I arrested debate
With diversions of plausible pork