today's inspiration

Changing Partners

Patricia Smith

When Sam Cook crooned “Bring Your Sweet Loving

On Home to Me,” you could wrap your hips around that asking.

Wouldn’t be no problem for my mama-

back in those days when she could-

to slip her body into that cool wail,

hiking up a skirt tight as a hiccup,

hypnotizing a row of whiskey-soaked old men who only

wanted to squeeze something before closing time.

Or I can see her and my daddy,

tentative as matchsticks,

locked into one of those spine-twisting dips

with his nose nuzzling her throat,

searching for a basement, red-light rhythm to rule their lives.

But the first time I actually saw my mama dance,

her partner grabbed her heels and shook her till

she coughed music. His hands rubbed her skin raw

as he whipped her body through improbable spins,

snapping her back to him with a pop that startled her bones.

Runs soared through her stockings like rush-hour traffic,

swollen feet screamed in slingback pumps,

eyeglasses cracked in the chaos.

She pushed at him to calm the whirling,

but he hooked her wrists and held them,

twirled her into a twist

that slapped a howl from her throat.

The dancers stepped double-time until the walls sighed

and buckled around them, until the floor groaned with

mama’s every frightened stomp, until everyone in the room

formed a circle with their bodies and circles with their mouths,

watching her arc through moves she shouldn’t have survived.

Her eyes widened as the music braced for the bridge

and her partner’s name grew large in her mouth,

the music no one else could hear grew sluggish and sexy and

the man no one could see coaxed a final bone-clanging shimmy.

Then he was done with her. Her body broke like a fever.

Mama tells me I’ll dance too.

So I wait for the dancehall Jesus to move through me,

to fill me with hoseannas, rock me with hallelujahs,

to shake these bored bones.

I wait until the house lights slam on,

until the greasy rags slide across the bartop,

until the music slurs to a stop.

I wait for the holy ghost to pull me out

onto the dance floor, whisper come-ons in my ear,

make me kick my heels above my head.

Mama says he’ll come when I’m at peace.

But I’m what she was at 20, winking sleek,

moving only when there’s a nasty mix, blue lights,

and a flesh-and-blood partner to press it all against.