Dancing in the Park

Old-timers gather in the evenings after dinner,

at a square near the lotus pond, loudspeakers

spilling Classical music in the setting sun.

Couples form and begin twirling and dipping,

women in crisp skirts and heels, men in blazers,

the shy wallflowers with glittering eyes, waiting.

It’s Valentine’s Day, a first date, that awkward

high school dance, even the father-daughter

dance you shared at your first wedding

under a sparkling tent; but you never dance

anymore.  Now you watch.  Off to the side,

chattering grandmas are making deals, playing

matchmaker, trading photos of their marriageable

offspring like baseball cards, while divorced women

frown, lonely and ignored (this, a traditional city).

And you consider stepping to the sidelines, causing

a stir as the only foreign woman, a divorced one,

at that, but you don’t, and it grows dark.  Couples

are leaving hand in hand, soundmen joking over

cigarettes, packing up their equipment, as the

lotus blooms begin to wilt in the fading light.

~ Lauren Tivey

*Note: 2013 salvaged poem from my expansion drive crash