Tonight's Poet Corner: Okay.

Okay.
by Belinda Roddie

so i'm sitting at the downtown
café at half past three, smoking
something cheap and drinking
something cheaper, when she

rips open the sky like a curtain,
comes drifting down, and lands
right on the stool
across from mine. she asks,

"is there anyone who likes
to dance anymore?" and i tell her
no, because music was banned
throughout the country after

the president's daughter wrecked
an ankle while pirouetting, could never
dance again, and threw herself
into the Hudson in shame.

so i'm puffing and sipping and she's
sighing and spitting out of
the corner of her red mouth,
all moaning and groaning about
the WORLD TODAY. and the

WORLD TODAY is full of
hiccups over champagne and
tattoos hidden under long sleeves,
and underground movements where
knees wobble on platform shoes

as shadows sway, back and forth, back
and forth, and back when the cops
come to break the party up.

she won't leave me alone, until
i offer her my table as a stage, and
she dips herself into the air like a
straw into suds, and as she contorts

herself into a choreography i can't even
fathom, the sirens go off, and the WORLD
TODAY turns into night. and my stogie
burns out. and i choke on my coffee.
And I find Myself drowning in the river.