Kick Some Ass

(For TC)

I may have certain failings, sitting on the couch
in my pink striped at-home monkey shorts, having slept
half the day, having been kept awake by mini-
tasks and imaginings the entire goddamned night. The mind,
I have read, is an imp of perversity. On less nervous days,
someone could say that to me and I would smile my cute wondering
smile with only one small cute furrow in my brow. Someone
mostly very kind, who has been a fan for years, could say, “Whose
mind? You know? I mean . . . whose . . . mind?”
and it wouldn’t make me sob in annoyance. I want
you to know that whatever my failings, you’ve made it
into my choreography when I’m standing on the subway platform
and a jaunty song comes up on shuffle. My friends and I are doing
a synchronized dance we would do in our musical
or the musical we would pretend to be in. Two or three of us
start with micro-movements, jazzy and movie-bohemian. Then
we break into larger Sharks-and-Jets-type gestures. It’s beautiful
how we bend at the knees at the same time and twirl like that
and raise our arms at different times, with emphatic dance hands.
Toward the end you are the one, most recently, who grabbed me
around the waist, your head pointing downward, so that we did a two-
person cartwheel, my feet on the ground, then your
feet on the ground, then my feet on the ground. We made it look
so effortless. And FUN! Sometimes when I look like I’m frowning
at you, I’m thinking about how few people make it into
my choreography and how impossible it would be to tell you
what it means to me to add one more. So, I’ll try to kick some ass.
I trust you on this.