Gym Dance with the Doors Wide Open

When the fog slunk in with that salivary,

close, coyote panting, its hue a very

huelessness, like breath huffed on a glass,

like the void stretched and still stretching past

where we’d thought it could, we felt less wary.

We felt our shoulders loosen, surrendering

to phantom hands and softly vanished feet.

The sensation was a first and last: sweet

to feel the vigilance at last suspending,

the chronic stress of constantly pretending

to know—have known!—what all the others knew.

Loopy, sly, we leered at one another

(what we just assumed was one another)

and did the things we weren’t supposed to do,

grinning as if seated in the back pew

of a church that worshipped fuss and bother,

a dour church where facial expression   

of any kind had been prohibited,

and where the chinking, hefty plate we shifted

hand to hand held such a vast collection

of their coin, we pocketed a fraction

for when the fog would lift, if it lifted.

But stealing from them puts you in their power.

Since then we have been paying for that hour.