the dancing lady on the corner

the dancing lady on the corner

Looks can be deceiving, but if they're not,

her recent meal was mayonnaise crust

from a discarded McChicken, topped

with sips on melted ice.

That Piggly Wiggly shirt has seen some shit.

Her body, lithe as twice-smoked Marlboro reds,

jerks in and out beneath the cinder burn

of mothy lamps. She thrusts

beside the grated bench, churning

her knees and elbows to the beat

of Trippie Redd (or Joyner Lucas?)

that pulses somewhere unseen.

                                                  But this is not

the red-light district mating dance

for balding birds of prey. The street is wide

and airy as a gaping wound: empty, dark,

the type of night

when even horny men in minivans give up the search.

Only food receipts go crawling down the street.

She pauses. She'd like

to get it right.

Slowly, methodically, she brings

an elbow to a knee,

does it again, again,

rehearsing the move she's seen

the kids beside the bus-stop do.

There isn't much to dance about, tonight
or any night at all, but since she does
she wants to get it right—
and therein we are kin.