Pas de Deux
In our choreography, Dad and I
had three types of dance:
the shower, the stairs, and the car.
The shower’s dance was a slow kabuki-
like affair, where each movement
was punctuated with a certain pose
that had its own philosophy of alpha
and omega for each shifting limb.
The stairs required an ancient respect
where I, the younger, preceded
in descent and followed in ascent,
to catch the fall that would eventually come.
The car became a prop and barrier
to hold and skirt, target and leave,
enter and exit, like the hat and pouring rain
that danced with Gene Kelly.
In our dances, I provided the support
while spinning around his unending
juggernaut always heading for a rail,
a wall, “Some damn thing to grab on to.”
Hopper’s Diner Second Shift:
Reflection on the Mood of “Nighthawks” (1942)
For the waitress behind
the counter, there is a serenity
that pretends to come
with the end of the day,
when the sunlit crowds have left
and a few stragglers clack
heels down a dusky
film noir side street,
when the second sitting
dinner crowd has disappeared
and the guy at the end
of the counter sipping coffee,
hoping the waitress would bend over
in front of him, her puckered
blouse the only sex he’d get
for the night, finally leaves,
when late shift nighthawks alight
and the matte black of night
fills the background
behind the neon,
then her shift is done and she
says “G’night” to Cal the late guy,
goes home, undresses alone,
lets out the cat to prowl midnight,
and crawls into bed feeling
the end of the day settle over her body
like a flannel blanket of armor
against the bedlam of the day.
Mike McDermott has published poems in Minimus, WordWrights!, phoebe, Cabin Fever (Idaho), The Federal Poet, Frantic Egg 4, and Rustlings; a short story in Minimus; various non-fiction, and, long ago, freelanced about frolicking porcelain frogs for catalogs. He has an MFA from George Mason University and as president of the GMU Writer’s Club organized readings for Margaret Atwood, W.D. Snodgrass, William Stafford, W.S. Merwin, and others. He has served on editorial boards of WordWrights! and GW Forum and is currently the Treasurer of The Word Works Inc. He has been an active participant in Washington, D.C, area poetry readings for several years.
Image by Aude – Self-published work by Aude, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=525258