The Left and Learned

I smiled at the thought of dancing with you every night and for the rest of my life,

and I felt guilty for allowing myself such thoughts,

and even though there were foreign bodies in my bloodstream,

I no longer wanted to be the home body,

the weak one with an IV in her arm,

I was much better than all of this,

and I was issuing apologies left and right to people who didn't deserve them,

and I should have been saying all of this to myself,

all along,

singing vocal reveries of all the things I learned in novels,

singing my praises if I knew how to get my voice back

If I asked you,

would you dance with me in the moonlight?

---again and again, would you?

If I asked you to stay,

would you promise not to get sick of me,

the way I seem to sicken of myself?

And maybe when we settle into the wrinkles predestined in our youth,

we would look back on all of this silliness,

we would look over our old shoulders and recall that even then,

we were two old souls,

with feathers for feet---