Two Poems

From Saturday Nights at the Crystal Ball

Love Song

One night I had a dream

there was a party and people dancing

laughing, talking – I sat on the edge

watching my mother in green silk

and my father in tux and tie

all a shimmering web of light

and then the talking stopped

and the music stopped

and it was just my parents and me.

They had eyes only for each other

and he began to sing to her.

I don’t remember the words

they weren’t important

but I left them there, their faces burning

bright, only a little less than angels.

Dancing in the Dark

Someone said the best thing

my parents did together was dance.

When the two were out together

people would stop and watch

the tall man and the laughing girl

who never missed a step

but then their music ended

and my father left

to marry a woman

who looked up at him

in a pleading way

and though she didn’t dance

he could not stop

and this may be the softest thing

I know about my father:

they say he kept on dancing

to those old seventy-eights

on moody nights at home

alone and lonely, circling

endlessly in the smoky dark.