The Dance                                                         


            To tell you the truth (for a change)
            I’m sick of all our namby-pamby couples friends
            Who can’t go anywhere in single file
            And frown on us –
            Albeit in the nicest possible manner –
            Because we live in separate homes
            Without either a toddler or a dog
            And refuse to march in lockstep or salute
            When they start in on kindergarten
            As the gateway to a doctorate
 
            One evening I had had my fill
 
            Not just of wine (the only way to stomach
            The displays of their togetherness in everything
            From soup they sip exchanging spoons
            To sluts in babysitters’ guise
            They’d never let within a thousand miles
            Of their darling’s ten-foot pole)
 
            But of the way they danced –
 
            Which was apart
 
            Because they’d been so busy
            Striding side by side along a graded road
 
            The graceful twirl and glide to changing tempi
            Left them lurching in the lurch and on their own
 
            They tried to make the best of it
            With smiles and winks across the gulf
 
            Occasionally
            A twitch or two would hit the beat
            By chance
     
            It was a sorry sight
 
            So Ursula and I decided we should take the floor
            To show them what the strength and suppleness of
            Two charmed into one by choice
            Might do
 
            No matter where we’d spend the night


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            Emanuel E. García, Sinking In, One Hundred Poems2013