As a Child

I once thought that to be complete then I would be a dancer
a-tramping on a moonlit stage on ballet-points I’d be
aspiring to the dancing lead, like the Russian girls I see,
I’d be content with chorus line in ballet and in opera.
On empty stages I would dance , long after curtain call
and after patrons had gone home to whisky and to wives
that loved their husbands and were blind to double lives
and mistresses in ballet shoes that had no love at all.
Instead I was an artist with a crimson loaded brush
with which to mar a field of Prussian blue. Oils and water-
colours vied for my attention too, though I oughta’
pay my homage to the masters of the gilded blush.
Many years have passed and I write novels for a living
though I never shall forget that dreams forgotten are forgiving.

prompt