A Dancing City

-- The title is taken from my new favorite book "Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann --

"A Dancing City"

I want to live
In a dancing city
Where at late hours
Of late nights
When I'm not quite done
Having fun with nightly people
I can cascade into a ballroom
And dance myself
Into sunlight

I want to live
In an oceanside cottage
Where I make scrambled eggs
For tourists escaping
The scraping sounds
Of a distant city
That refuses to dance
Like the one in France I used to visit
That was hidden from view
From too-tired people
Too tired to do much of anything
And everything that involved
Dancing

I want to make these people
Feel like they've found home
In a home by the ocean
Where they can watch waves crash
Stashing away their anxiety
About the coming work week
And every night we'll drive into the city lights
Of the dancing city
But never so deep
That we can't see the waves
We left behind

I want to make love
To a traveling man
Who disbands our union
Every few weeks
So he can sneak off
To places I can't be bothered to visit
Because I'm too busy
Being elicited for rhumbas
And waltzes
And fox trots
So I let him go off to hot climates
Then come back
Every so often
To tell me what he's seen
And I'm never green with envy
Just serene with the sounds of the music
That drifts into me
As I fall asleep
Next to him

I want to walk down
A giant staircase
Every night
Greeted by strangers
Who swear that they know me
And maybe they do
I do make a familiar impression

I want to dance
I want to dance in a dancing city
Where you can walk the streets
Catching glimpses
Of lives passing by
In open apartment windows

I can see mothers
Up with their babies
I can see lovers
Having their first fight end
I can insomniacs
Beating back the morning hours
Feeling power in how much of the day
They've gained back
From the night

I want to live in that place
I want to grow old there
And swear I'm decades younger
Than I really am

Until the day the last wave arrives
And I drive myself into the city
To dance my last dance
Feeling glad
I had the chance

To live in a dancing city