trout

My parents dancing

Elizabeth Smither

We, in our fancy dress, were feasting
at long trestles covered in white paper
soon stained by gobs of raspberry jelly
and wet by icecream and icecream spoons.

we had danced in a lightly-controlled fashion
cowboys and fairies, each with their passion
and holding hands passed down long avenues
of garlanded space and returned to captivity.

Our little energies increased our identities.
Finally, in the Grand Parade, we made a globe
our colours smudged, we ran to eat
at trestle tables, treats piled up.

But on the vacant, vaster floor
more like a sea, more like a shore
my parents among the other parents dance
and I cannot forbear to glance

at how they glide and corner and dip
as if, loosing their children, they resume
the leading reins that held between
their forms the passion that adored

and which they leave a space for
as if they too treasure it, leaning away
then irresistibly drawn into its pull
and yet drawing slightly back to accord

it homage. It might be the space
between their twin pillows at night
or a hand's reach behind a head
or her hair that lightly touches his shoulder.