There Was a Dance, Sweetheart

It was a dance,
her back against the wall
at Carmen’s party. He was alone
and he called to her - come here, come here.
That was the first time she saw him
and she and Carmen later drove him home
and all the way he talked to the moon
to stars and to someone riding
in the backseat that she
and Carmen didn’t hear.

And the next time was either a story
in one of his poems, or what
she had heard from crows
gathered before snow caught
in the wheels of traffic silent
up and down Central Avenue.
He was two thousand years old.
She ran the bars with him
before the motion of snow
caught her, too, and he moved in.
It was dance.

In the dance were mesas winding
off the western horizon, the peak
of Mount Taylor that burned up 
every evening at dusk light.
And in rhythymmm were mountain curves
that she fell against every night looking up
looking up. She knew him then, or maybe
it had been the motion of crows
against the white cold and power lines.
The voice that was him moved in her,
rocked in her and then the child
small and dark in the dance
dance dance of the dance.

There was no last time she saw him.
He returned with stars, a certain moon
and in other voices like last night.
She heard him first. Screen door slammed
against the wall. Crows outside
the iced tight windows.
Which dance, locked and echoed and sucked
the cliffs of her belly in?
She picked up their baby from the crib, 
more blankets to tuck them in.
Loud he called - come here, come here. 

It was a dance.
 

Originally appeared in the publication, What Moon Drove Me To This? (copyright, Joy Harjo,1980) and later reprinted in How We Became Human: New And Selected Poems 1975-2001 (copyright, Joy Harjo, 2002).