if I had a dream to risk
to come true, I’d spend
my night dancing under
the moonlight with you,
two hours past midnight
holding each other close,
we’d be laughing until the
morning light rose, reliving
our first date with twenty
questions and promises
foretold, foregoing the
dancing for blankets in
the cold, we’d have just
one night to allow our
imaginations to roam,
before separately we
each ventured home.
I once asked my father
to dance around the living
room with me, my feet on
his as he twirled me around
the laughs and giggles filling
the room in colors of gold –
myself in a sun dress of white,
a flower and ribbons in my hair,
stepping on his cowboy boots
I remember far better on my
feet than his own. It was a
bliss that only comes in ages;
twice in memory, only once in
the presence of beauty bound.
A foreshadowing of the day
when I can embrace him and
give thanks for taking my
hand to give to another, and
allowing me to follow my heart
to grow up, to be like him.
Others called her by a three
letter name, I only ever knew
her as love personified – as
my muse dancing on the moon
between laughs of whiskey and
unreported jazz, sweet in a
rain of temptation yet sour
in a defeat of whispers and in
an attempt at people pleasing.
Still missing from my arms,
it was hard to let her go –
watching as she danced down
the aisles with two songs in
her heart, but only listening
to the one I couldn’t sing.
I still call out to her, but
she’s no longer listening to
my words, my cries in the night;
even as three in the morning
approaches and I’m lying in
bed with one ear on the phone
because I’m certain she’ll call.
No, I’m lost in the night sky,
trying to come up with some
other name to call her – but
nothing else can replace love.
I don’t believe in fate
or chance, and serendipity
was only ever just a girl,
but she came dancing into
my life with colors of blue,
chanting storms of hope
and promise, parading about
with one hand on the horizon,
the other one twirling rain;
she was full of questions
but she was always the only
answer, and perhaps that’s
why I was left in a haze
when she was gone, clearing
away the notions of uprising
in a dance meant for two.
Storylines in Verse 