Slow Dancing                      

MCC  1912 - 1989

Up to now, I've rarely mentioned death,

how some people grab it on the wing,

the way you catch a whirling partner on the

ballroom floor, how it seems

to make its move just when you think

you've learned your steps. Growing up,

death and dance were equally remote.

Death, because Mom hid it from me.

Dance, ironically, because she urged it on me.

She thought the two-step was the answer

to every question -- girls, fame, you name it.

Everlasting life.

Mom, you should have known

a dance as slow and boring as the two-step

could never make you live forever.

You should have cultivated Arthur Murray,

learned everything there is --

the way the rhumba shakes out all the sadness,

the mambo and its riffs celebrate the sun,

the tango, in its poses and its hushes, schemes

to make two people float above the floor.

Even now, in dreams, I see you dance

that jerky dance with Dad, like actors

in an Ingmar Bergman film. In slow motion,

Death, the pale, self-righteous stranger,

glides across the shining floor.

The film begins to flicker. The music

howls and starts to spiral down. I see Him

raise his hand. I know He's cutting in.                    

 

                                        Thanks to the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review,

                                       for publishing “Slow Dancing” in their

                                       Vol XIX, No 4, Winter 2010 issue.

                                                                  Julian Crowell

Julian Crowell was born and raised in Tennessee. Before becoming a poet, he taught physics and mathematics at colleges in Pakistan, Virginia, North Carolina, Turkey, Algeria and New Jersey, and then joined the corporate world for several years before retiring. He lives in Massachusetts, has been married for more than 50 years and has three adult children.