|
Mary Shea danced across the Tappanzee Bridge--
by the time she got to Buffalo, just a shuffle away,
she was tapped out and only had enough gusto left
to make a dry run over Niagara Falls' roiling foam.
Everybody told her she was gonna be a star, go far--
but the mattered few picked the first gaping girls
who knew all the steps and never looked back.
She hit the pavement again, a little harder.
When the stock market was open, she danced
to the mail room and back, filing dreams
for other people, keeping her legs in shape
running numbers in her head over the general din.
Ball and change, step up to the hot plate
in a cozy fourth floor walk-up, above,
her neighbor types till dawn, writes stories
about the dancer downstairs stealing silence.
Tale-tell hearts run out of things to say,
even Bojangles quit the biz to be a statue,
paused forever mid-step where he used to
cross the street for school, moving on up.
She wants to hit the big time once, on the clock
or off, can wait for the thunder that breaks hearts,
wants to see her name in lights on Broadway,
upstate at the least, out of town, on the road.
Mary Shea tapped across the lordly Hudson,
past one tower to another on a bright day
when the world ended, she was doing a soft-shoe
on spilled sugar in the break room ch-cha-chaa!
September 1, 2002
©2002, Shann Palmer
Shann Palmer is a poet, musician & teacher who wrote for the About Poetry Museletter as our Virginia/District of Columbia correspondent. She is also the author of two previous feature articles here: “How Things Outlive Us” (on Larry Levis) & “Slam 'n Me.”
Next page > “9/11/02” by JD Goetz...
Poems After the Attack collection > table of contents
Previous Feature Articles
By Date | By Topic
|
