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5th July, 2024

Friday Poem – ‘All Souls’ Saturday Night’ by Carol Rumens

Close up of the feet of two dancers, their shadow stretching out on the purple-lit floor

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘All Souls’ Saturday Night’ by Carol Rumens from her collection Animal People.

All Souls’ Saturday Night
In the corner of my living-room, she’ll sit watching herself on TV
lost in a vision of mobility
which doesn’t hurt, or almost doesn’t hurt –
they said I was cut out to be a dancer.
Foxtrot, waltz, tango, samba, rumba –
the glitter-balls revolve:
a ghost of taffeta holds her, slips her on –
doctors should kill us off when we get to sixty.
She swims the air
with swollen broken-slippered feet; her see-through hands drift to unlock
the rack of hips: she stands, she’s twisting free
in the shudder of a beginner’s paso doblé,
and steps out partnerless – who needs a man
to kick-in the glass, glissade into a streaming
of stars across space-time to be
her own blue heaven? There’s the empty chair –
you should have seen me at the Hippodrome
and in my living-room, her quick-step quickens, lightest among them, and the glance
over her shoulder knows I’m watching her somewhere, on television.