His sneakers on my dress shoes and we turned

His sneakers on my dress shoes and we turned

in something like a circle, half a beat

behind the music. I have never learned

how to do this—both my feet

were wrong. He'd been pulling at my hand

all night, so I got up. He climbed

right on. The rented tent. The cover band.

The string lights. And for once I timed

nothing. Just shuffled, stiff, and stepped

on him instead of the floor. He laughed. I kept

going. Wrong foot, wrong foot, his hands

gripping my belt loops, making small demands

I couldn't read—left, right, too fast.

We were terrible at this. The last

time I tried to move to music

I was twenty-two. The thick

joy of it, though—his face tilted up,

both of us stumbling. Ninety seconds. A cup

of something I hadn't tasted in so long

I'd forgotten the shape of it. The song

ended. He jumped down, ran for cake.

The feeling closed behind him like a wake

behind a boat—still there, but spreading thin.

I stood on the empty floor. The grin

still drying on my face.

That was last night.

I'm in the car now. Driveway. Porch light

still on from when we left. The cold

coming through the cracked window. I hold

the steering wheel with the engine off.

His car seat in the back. A cough

of frost on the windshield, morning just

starting. I was happy. Not the dust

of remembering it better—I was happy

and I knew it at the time. Scrappy

and graceless and half a beat behind.

His sneakers on my shoes. I don't mind

sitting here a little longer.

The feeling stays if I stay still.

Each minute pulls a little wronger,

a little further from the thrill

of being terrible together—

but not yet. The frost. The porch light's buzz.

The cold morning and its weather.

I'm almost ready to go in. Almost was

enough, last night.