Dance, Liana, Dance

from Spring 2003

Dance, Liana, Dance

This morning you’re the queen of pitch.
Around the room without your shoes

you carve a naked dance-step, in time
with suspense between the braking

of cars that yield to morning glare.
There’s trouble in Bolivia,

catastrophe on Mt. Rainier.
You press the message into motions

of head-to-knee and hand-to-wall,
the screen of your skirt eclipsing

gardenias on the wallpaper.
The left arm a comma, the right

arm an apostrophe. The clefts
between the floorboards never pinch

your toes the way they pull out threads
from stocking feet. My mistakes

repeat themselves with clumsy tread,
so dance, Liana, dance again.