Demon Dance
Demon Dance
by Laura Summerville Reed
White noise on the other side of the door
A welcome reprieve
The courteously phrased accusations
are muffled tonight
by the singing of your demons
They only let you off the dance floor
to take a breath
during fitful bouts of apnea and sweat
There’s white noise waiting for me, too
and a tiny yellow torpedo of silence
A few hours of oblivion
then I’ll listen to the songs you learned last night
Dissonance is so much easier to sing
than dance to
but dance, we will
with our own demons
so I’ll teach mine a few of my favorite steps
and learn the cadence of this hard measure
that’s bruised my heel
and left scuff marks
of my missed footing
LSR 2010©