Tonight's Poet Corner: One, Two, One, Two

One, Two, One, Two
by Belinda Roddie

It's not that I don't want to dance
in these lukewarm, trying times: It's that
I can't find the strength to. Even in sunlight,
I find myself scraping shadows from the soles
of my feet, dragging soles in search of a soul.

It's almost as if the choreography
I had in my head
translates merely into clumsy stumbles
over scattered bricks and cinder blocks.
I don't know where those came from.
I don't know how long they'll stay.

My wife wants to dance with me -
she understands how to keep rhythm
to any whisper from Music's sticky lips.
I, however, feel glued to the kisses,
and consequently, I stay stationary,
immobile, unable to recognize one beat
from another.

If all goes well in the next month or so,
perhaps I'll remember that I have one left
and one right foot after all, and I'll be
capable of weaving fingers between notes
as easily as a pen frisks the treble clef
or the negative space between chords.

I can walk, run, ride a bicycle,
submerge myself in my own subsconscious
and swim in the most vivid teas of oceans -
hot, iced, delivered to me in crystal vessels -
but for the life of me, in lukewarm, trying times,
I cannot bring myself to dance.