We danced.

Tapping our heels.

We danced in the streets.

Twisting our hips.

We danced by the lake.

Singing our melody.

We danced in the neighborhood.

Twirling each other.

We swung our way through memories:

We moved

through the dance hall,

hands held tight.

We glided

on the wood floor, until

our legs grew sore and feet irritated.

We paused only after the sweat moved

from our faces to chests.

I wore my white shoes with gold trim.

You wore your black suede shoes.

The memories of who we saw,

what they said, colors of walls, clothes of others:

never registered, permanently forgotten.

Then we ran toward our love of one another,

tripping on each other's heels, breathlessly laughing,

smiling at the couple we thought we were.

 

We pulled off our shoes,

the ones imprisoning our yearning feet,

so we could run free to the edge of the Sound

and let the pebbles massage away the callouses

that formed in the night.

We noticed the absence of the shoe

only after the day broke,

left somewhere between our dancing

and our return

to the foreignness of

one another

found only in

the rising of the dawn.