Dancing Words

Good morning, words. Will you dance for me today?

Maybe a waltz, then some soft-shoe.

Without music, of course, you can’t dance.

Music is the one thing we have in common

(if we are lucky enough to have a body and two ears)

So I’ll hum you some.

A slow foxtrot now, can’t rush these things.

I’ll hold your hand in mine and let my breath

make you sway.

You’re from different times: you speak in different tongues.

Some from before my time, some that came with me

from the womb.

I can feel you fraying at the edges where I touch you.

But I don’t know how to speak your language, so I just hold you.

I’m learning how to see your letters as shapes made with light.

How would that look? I wonder if you danced for the blind.

A slow waltz now, like a garden in winter. It would be nice to see that:

the bare trees and frosted grass under a blue sky…

But it is too late in the year for me to tell you what I mean.

Whatever you dance, make poems for me, please.