Dancing

I like the pull and squeak of it, warm flesh on the floor,
And the tap, the clack, the body twisting into turns,
Skeleton of skin, the breath and sigh of it, rubbed red at the heels
And a stretch of black, the slick of the spandex, the toe
Twisted tight as rope, pulled quicker by the sound,
The call and response of it, and the face is flushed
Slicked now with sweat as the music picks up, pulling pace
With the hot mush of breath, beat and rhythm in the pink,
And the blood pulsing it out, heart fast and the mouth gulps,
The arc and glide of it, a whooshing of air
Like the first screaming breaths rattling a new baby’s lungs,
The hospital, at the end of April, the room hot and cold at once.

Kate Romney Johnson holds an MFA in poetry from Brigham Young University and is the editor-in-chief of Inscape Journal. Her work has appeared in Segullah, Jake magazine, and Exponent II, and is forthcoming in Soft Union and The Academy of American Poets.

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