My Guy Went Dancing With Miss Kitty At The Lutheran Church

Tonight my guy went dancing,
contra dancing, lines weaving,
precision and fun in some Lutheran church.
"Uh-oh," I thought, as I smiled at him.

He presses shiny grey strips of duct tape
to the bottoms of his dancing shoes
to keep from too much slipping, too much sliding,
because you know you cannot trust a Lutheran floor.

(The last time my guy went dancing,
contra dancing courtship, lines all weaving,
he did great, he lamented, until they were leaving
and he fell down the last three gymnasium steps.)

Tonight my guy went dancing, goatee neatly trimmed,
and whether he picked Miss Kitty up at her house
or whether she met him there, I pretend
no need to know or care, for they're just dancing, dancing, dancing there..

It's still hard, hard to stomp down ugly paisley-patterned jealousy,
hard not to giggle at the Lutheran sweat part of that toe-tappin' floor --
Lutheran teens are told to consider, first, whether to dance
is to lust, is worldy, not chaste, and I laugh from the belly

to learn there is legitimate dance, like legitimate
rape, and my guy went out dancing with Kitty,
drove her in my car, turning and strutting on Luther's split pine
badly varnished, sin-soaked floor.



© 2013 L. Ryan