A/N: I came across this set of eleven songs based on some short poems. The poems are দ্বারা George Montgomery, but I don’t know what their actual names are, if they even have names. I found some of them beautiful and all of them interesting, so I’m attempting to use them as bases for some mini-fics.

The poems were set to সঙ্গীত দ্বারা William Bolcom, intended for performance দ্বারা voice, piano, and a solo dancer. Hence the শিরোনাম Songs to Dance. It was only performed this way once, in New York in 1991. The pianist was William Bolcom, the soloist Joan Morris (Bolcom’s wife), and the dancer was Dan Wagoner (George Montgomery’s partner).    

The scenes are not connected in any way to one another, and the times and places are random. Some will be short, some will be long.


This is a face.
This is a place.
This is a door.
This is a floor.
This is a room.
This is a poem.

    “Have I told আপনি how beautiful আপনি are?” Arthur’s voice, low and soft, in Guinevere’s ear. She can feel his warm breath on her neck, her ear, and she almost drops the basket of laundry she is holding. She can sense his body close behind her.
    “Arthur!” A whispered gasp. Her eyes close when his hands drift to her waist, the heat from his palms burning through the layers of her dress. “Someone might see,” she cautions, her reserve faltering.
    “I keep telling আপনি I don’t care,” he says, recklessly স্নেহ চুম্বন her neck, knowing she can’t push him away because her hands are full.
    “But your father…” she tries.
    “My father doesn’t know if it is দিন অথবা night, most of the time,” he says with a sigh, dropping his forehead to her shoulder.
    Footsteps.
    He pulls her through a nearby door, into a vacant guest room, closing the door quietly. He takes the basket from her hands and drops it unceremoniously to the floor.
    “Guinevere,” he says simply. Her pulse quickens at the sound of her name on his lips.
    “You are becoming careless, my lord,” Gwen says, dropping her eyes to the floor. If I look at him I will surely die of my need for him.
    The room is dark; the drapes are drawn. A solitary sunbeam shines in through the divide in the drapes at one window, splitting the room. Dust motes swirl in the air that has been disturbed দ্বারা the unexpected visitors. They dance in the sunbeam.
    “What I am becoming is surer of myself, Guinevere, আরো certain of what I want. What I know I need.” He pulls her unresisting into his arms, splaying his broad fingers across her narrow back.
    “Oh,” she dumbly says, her brain clearly somewhere in the laundry basket at her feet. Her fingers absently curl into the fabric of his শার্ট as he bends his head to চুম্বন her, once, softly.
    “I know I need you, Guinevere. I am only half the man I could be without আপনি দ্বারা my side,” he whispers, his face hovering close to hers, eyes only half open as he brushes his lips against hers, nuzzling her nose with his.
    Gwen is trembling in his arms, not with fear of discovery but with untapped desire. If he wanted me in this moment, I would willingly give myself to him, consequences be damned.
    “I lo—”
    She cuts off his words with her lips, words she is too afraid to hear him speak yet she knows them to be true with every fiber of her being, down to her very core. She lifts on tiptoe, pressing against him, showing him rather than telling him, too afraid to speak the words herself.
    Arthur is lost, adrift in a sea made of Guinevere as he feels her small hands bunching his শার্ট in her fists, straining her body upwards to reach him, clinging to him yet holding him upright.
    She loves me.

Song 2: link