there was dancing
Published in Poetry Scotland’s Issue 106 (Autumn 2023)
To love life, even when it can’t
love you back, even when it has forgotten
your name like the title of an old
movie¾ it was black and white,
there were lovers, there was dancing.
To choose life after it stained
your palms with the soil of a place
you can’t call home, filled your mouth
with men you’ll never call yours.
What has it ever allowed you to keep? And yet
you hold it, hold it, hold it, tender
now, in your arms, and you let it
be—rotten and strange and beautiful—
and you sway, now, still. Yes, you dance.
