Danse Russe

In this brief, shattering poem, Williams captures a moment of startling private confession: a man, alone while his wife and children sleep, dances naked before his mirror, admiring his body and singing softly to himself about being "born to be lonely." The poem reads like both confession and declaration. There's something almost embarrassing in its raw honesty - the speaker admits to vanity, to solitude, to a secret self that exists apart from his role as husband and father. Who is he when no one watches? This is the question Williams pursues with surgical precision, and the answer is neither heroic nor shameful: simply, authentically human. Written in Williams' signature spare, democratic verse, "Danse Russe" remains startlingly modern in its willingness to expose the vulnerable underbelly of masculine identity. It's a poem about the loneliness that persists even in the midst of family, and the strange, private rituals we perform to feel real.