- Psychiatric Times Vol 16 No 12
- Volume 16
- Issue 12
Dance Lesson
Dance Lesson - Poetry of the Times
Spinning and tumbling, 
hands held tight to a DSM, 
racing through the routine 
questions of sleep and sex, 
twisting toward tobacco, 
straining to split
 grief from depression, 
I perform compulsory moves, 
even a moment, perhaps, of listening.
Finished in 50 minutes, 
speeding to jump 
to diagnosis, I nail 
my twisted landing 
deep in corporate shadow.
But I remember when 
psychiatry was ballet, how we danced 
to Debussy and dressed technique 
with beauty. Back then we studied 
the moves of masters, waited for time 
between beats, and danced slow 
as the limping step of patient partners 
whose gaze we held 
just beyond reach of our hands.
© CME LLC
12/99
Read more
of Dr. Berlin's work.
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