Wednesday 14 January 2015

Dances with Strangers

You walk along an English High Street
and dance with the first stranger
who doesn’t look deranged.

Their face shows uneasy surprise,
as if you are telling the story of how your garden gate
was once treated for depression with creosote.

You stare at the only patch of blue
in an English sky,
willing it to spread, like a virus which eats grey clouds.

There is no sign of your erstwhile dancing partner.

Apologising to the pavement, you get down on one knee
and propose to a phrase of birdsong
whose reply you cannot decipher.

You dance with all the mad thoughts in your head
until their feet ache.
You dance and you dance and you dance
in case the music is still playing.


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