by Mary K O’Melveny
Lately, I have been thinking a lot
about dancing. Not actually doing it
myself – I was never very good at it –
but how I always imagined it must feel.
Like freedom. Like a grand escape.
Gravity left behind, shaking its weary head,
as I spin, turn, shimmy, spiral away
from heavy hearts, from memory’s drumbeat.
As if one might tap tap tap far away
from troubled minds to discover a brand
new stage where a leap of faith takes flight
on one’s own command. Where the only
things waiting in the wings like wallflowers
are lengthening shadows of regret.
Today, I crumpled up my privileged
dance card as I stared at photographs from
Kabul’s airport. It is impossible to fathom
the despair that sends one racing on foot
down airplane runways, clinging to wings
of jumbo jets as if they were old friends.
With each trip, slip, stumble, tumble to ground,
one sees how certainty of death also
means escape, albeit with less fanfare
than was craved in yesterday’s richer light.
Even as they strained for the upward lift,
those stranded, earth-bound crowds likely
knew how fickle dance partners can be, how
we must become our own choreographers.
Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY. Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.
