My Life in Dance

The clickity-clack of black patent-leather tap shoes

On polished wood floors in a Brooklyn loft.

Step, shuffle, ball change,

East Side, West side.

Friday night dances in the gym

A multi colored cellophane disc slowly turns

And casts romantic shadows on the teens below.

Lindy hop, mambo and cha-cha-cha

Sunday afternoon tea dances at the Y.

Girls sit along one wall and

boys stand in groups along the opposite.

Waltz, fox trot and rumba.

Mini skirts and white leather boots

You never touch your partner.

You don’t need a partner

Just get up and dance.

Twist, mashed potato and swim.

Mirrored ball rotates above

Flowered bell bottoms and platform shoes.

Saturday Night Fever

And do the Hustle

Then decades of unintelligible lyrics

And atonal noise that passes for music.

Saved by afternoon “senior” dances

With a three piece local band.

Fox trot, waltz, swing and cha-cha-cha.

Back to my tap dance roots

With the Central Coast Follies

on stage at the Clark Theater.

Step, shuffle, ball change.

S’wonderful.

When joints cry out “No more,”

I sit out the dance and watch.

But my feet still keep time

Under the shroud of skirt.