IF

I love dance. This piece, inspired by a wonderful, energetic night on the dance floor, is a litany of all the things I would love to do or say to the perfect dance partner - someday (or maybe never, depending.) 

If there is one thing you would like to do, but haven’t yet done, what is it? —Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I would turn the music on
Set Ella’s voice drifting through the air
Singing of love, of loss, of dreams
Singing of blues and life
And I would take your hands and ask
May I have this dance
And lead you to the floor

I would consciously forget
All the things that seem so important
In daylight hours:
My looks, this shyness, my fears
That somehow I won’t measure up
To what you want
And let the music speak
Through our arms
A touch and I follow
Rhythm translated
Into movement

I want to lean into you
Inhale these shared minutes
Let them sink, like words
Into the body
Let you read them in my eyes
Vocabulary that only dancers share
Secrets only partners know

And I want to kiss you
In the dim, smoky light of this little pub
In the middle of the world
Not caring that I’m old or tired
Worn out around the edges
From too much life
Knowing only that time
Slips away like a swift-flowing stream
And that this might be my only chance
To pause you –
To disorder your world enough
That you could never forget me
Even if you tried.

- Shuku

Shuku is a Musician-Trying-To-Make-It, and a Writer-Who-Would-Like-To-But-Is-Too-Paiseh. She admits to an acute weakness for well-chosen words strung together in either sentence form or poetry, and would marry Good Writing in a heartbeat if it were legal.Inspirations? Anything and everything, especially observations on the human condition and, occasionally, malfunctioning postal services, pompous bureaucracy, and the immortal Calvin and Hobbes.