MY IMPERSONATION OF GENE KELLY
When I walked down the hospital's granite steps
in the February rain, it was all
I could do to keep pied a terre,
parked in stone to keep from skipping,
wanting instead of the dignified mourner's gait
to timestep in the downpour, throw out
my arms, cry "Gotta dance!"
New feet grew from my chest, air rushed
to replace not the void but the smells
of my mother's just-concluded deathwatch,
the odors I'd sucked for a year, a universal
tit of Lysol and talcum, of shit, piss, and
human corruption. Feet wanted to leap into
puddles, dance like Gene Kelly of my Saturday
afternoon childhood, sing in the rain
instead of laugh 'til I cried.
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