Menuetto
Plaid sweaters on coathooks
rubber boots along the hall
in from the weather the boys and the girls
march to a two-step
blue-letter bows perched on their shoulders like
parakeets
Take my hand, Mary Ann
take from the millennia of my fingertips
the secret paragraphs within my palm
it is for this we ferris wheel over the boardwalk sky
for this we line up on walls east and west
working up the hormones to say
Excuse me, I
Let these amplified strangers
shake us around on the ends of their timepieces
let the sea water bead up on our foreheads until
the future becomes a paper we must sign in
blue ink and vinegar
The way your left hip swirls beneath my sonar
is a letter I will not open until the
stamp is old and faded
but give me a kiss and I will try to understand
why clockwise is the direction of choice
and how the spin of a mirrored ball can
turn a cafeteria into a milky way
From the collection Great Showtunes of the American Stage
First published in Orange
Coast Review
(Costa Mesa, California)
Photo by MJV
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