only two dancers
remain standing
shuffling
   and swaying
under syncopated lights
held by
an unspoken law
an apparently unavoidable
trait of human nature
that forces them
to continue despite
such terrible choices
of song
and persistence
each was merely
a "friend
   of the bride"
moving in different circles
prior to this
their dancefloor meeting
unfortunately
neither can now
abandon the other
to dance alone
to risk being seen
as the cause
for bringing this
near-sacred ritual
to an end
these residual bodies
left with no choice
but to mirror
each movement
match every sidestep
echo every clap
with rhythm
   or without
it will not matter
so long as this
transient solidarity
of misplaced confidence
and forced smiles
continues into
the next song

I can't speak for the others
I can only reflect on my own thoughts and the heat of discomfort.

I can't speak for the woman who wept beside her oversized suitcases on the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, I can only consider her tears and what they did to my own heartache.

I didn't speak, but I reached over after several minutes of communal silence and placed a tissue (clean and unused) on her lap.  Before I was back in my seat, she had taken it and covered her face in her grief and the tears came again.

The grandmother across from me got up next and placed a red stripped mint on the woman's skirt.

The dad who stood in the doorway, dressed for the beach, followed, leaving an offering of a capri-sun.

The child in the pram looked up at his mother and she smiled encouragement to him, as he offered his Spider-Man, pressing it to the woman's hand

and as she unveiled her face and saw the offerings, she laughed, brief and wet, but with a smile that stayed.  She hugged Spider-Man, nodded and then with a sensibility to a child's needs, handed it back with thanks.

After a moment she found my eyes, and mimed a request for a fresh tissue and then in the silence she settled for her journey as we all looked away, dutifully silent.

The street is illuminated in that shade of orange
that makes everything liminal
and we move in an opposite direction as the runners.
It seemed funny back then—
like fish veering away from its school
and maybe that’s what we are.

As we sink our feet in the slightly muddy field
and we sit without care of our light-colored jeans,
the fireflies light the dimmest corners.
We ooh and ahh like children
and maybe that’s what we are.

Boy and girl with no faces, no names.
I know you by a monosyllable
still I come, still,
like strangers made bolder by the circumstance
and maybe that’s all we are.