Dance Lessons

Yes, I, too, took dancing lessons,

a pre-school carrot-top Gene Kelly

in a Donald Duck sailor suit

shuffle-stepping my way across a stage

into an early exit, stage right.

After that first year, that only year of lessons,

I was destined never to dance again, lacking skill

and talent and the confidence I was meant to gain

in Mrs. Weatherbee’s studio high above Front Street.

It was many years hence

before I donned my dancing shoes once more,

a sophomore boy and a freshman girl,

two long lines facing one another

at the Junior High gym, chaperoned,

shuffling my feet and waving my arms,

almost rhythmically, yet inexperienced,

that clumsy dance of the high school boy,

shy and self-conscious, but for her,

for Wendy, I would have danced the night away,

Fred and Ginger gracefully swaying our way into young love;

but young love ends, as young love does,

and it did in the years to follow,

the pain of parting still lingering in memory’s dark recesses,

but for that one night we danced

and danced and nothing else mattered but us.