Doug McHargue, “Nights at the Dance Club”

Doug McHargue
Nights at the Dance Club

You flat out left me
on this flat plane of earth
so I went dancing.
He danced light and easy
with witty repartee
and asked me out,
but cutting into filet mignon
no vodka in hand
his throat went to gravel
smothering all words,
feet turning to clay.

I went out with another,
his dancing intense
as his love for an ex,
seeing her
while seeing me,
platitudes slipping
from each side of his mouth.

But I’d go every Friday
even dancing with a young Elvis,
his scarves wrinkled as the women
who caught them, flying
over the dance hall like little
flower-colored parachutes of hope.

Soft lights and shoulders to lean against,
music live and loud,
giant revolving ball glittering
on middle-aged sallowness
like sequined make-up
we’d wear on a carrousel
going round and round the room
hanging on to each other
so we don’t fall off the earth.

Bio: Doug McHargue is a regular contributor to Wild Goose Poetry Review. She lives in Statesville, NC.