Has Death asked me to step out on the floor? For a tango,
long and difficult? Will I need attitude, strength
to learn new steps?
I don’t expect a polka. With luck a waltz, a whirl
of warm music in which I’ll get lost rising
and sinking in my partner’s arms.
If the evening is long, I’d like breaks. Catch breath
on a chair pushed back from foxtrotters. Fade
with wallflowers.
But it might be a marathon that ends with collapse,
then the rat-a-tat-tat of his tap dance
for which I have no shoes.
Catherine Gonick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Caveat Lector, Crack the Spine, decomP, DIAGRAM, Front Porch Review, Ginosko, Amarillo Bay, Word Riot, Soul-Lit, Sukoon, Forge, Jet Fuel Review, Notre Dame Review, and Jewish Women’s Literary Annual. Her poetry has also appeared in the Crack the Spine Winter 2015 Anthology. She was awarded the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Prize for Poetry.
