by Sarah Wells
Jesus is dancing like no one is watching
his partner. He smiles and twirls a girl
in a satiny top and high heels. The audience
raises their glasses and pitchers. The dance
floor is packed and they’re playing
his song, the one on seducing a love
gone wrong. All of the ways he’s tried
to romance her,
but she turns her head,
ignores his advances and catches other
cowboys’ stares. She is sure the world
prefers a man in a Stetson hat instead
of this wild-eyed dancer, shameless
for her. How effortlessly
he turns her,
gathers her into himself as if he loves her
wandering, as if he loves her
doubts, would save her from her
handsome predators every Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night
from this honky tonk to eternity.
Sarah M. Wells is the author of the chapbook, ACQUIESCE, which won the 2008 Starting Gate Award from Finishing Line Press (March 2009). Poems by Wells have appeared or are forthcoming in /Measure, Poetry East, Christianity & Literature, Literary Mama, Poetry for the Masses, JAMA, Nimrod, Windhover, The New Formalist, Relief,/ and elsewhere. Wells is the Administrative Director of the low-residency MFA Program at Ashland University, where she serves as Managing Editor for the Ashland Poetry Press and River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. She blogs at http://driftwoodtumble.blogspot.com.
One Response
This was wonderful. I really enjoyed it.