Diane Lockward
Dreaming to Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling”
I float up and up, my arms now wings,
and back to the room where I once
was a girl, sent to bed early while my
parents figured out how to end
their marriage. Suspended like a bat
from the ceiling, vantage point
phenomenal, I see the white eyelet
curtains being eyed by my cat. Her first
heat and wild with desire, she howls
like a madwoman, leaps from the floor,
and with her claws pulls and pulls until
the curtains hang like strands of linguine.
I see the bureau, top drawer minus
the money my father stole while I slept,
and the bottom drawer, my blood
on the edge, a scar already forming
on my lip. And the chair that hides
the monster who comes in the night
to enter my dreams. In the closet,
the red taffeta dress I can’t wear
because my father says red is a color
for a whore. I see the bed where a girl
lays dreaming, seeds inside her
churning, that girl dreaming a man,
the two of them embraced in a waltz,
long before the flamenco‘s fierce
yearning and pulsing hips, long before
the slither of the tango and intertwined
limbs, before the arrogant paso doble,
its separation and attack, its quick,
sharp steps like flint against steel,
her red satin dress in flames, her red
leather spikes setting the floor on fire.
Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water (Wind Publications, 2010). Her poems have been published in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. Vist her website: www.dianelockward.com and her blog: www.dianelockward.blogspot.com
Return to March 2013 Edition
I float up and up, my arms now wings,
and back to the room where I once
was a girl, sent to bed early while my
parents figured out how to end
their marriage. Suspended like a bat
from the ceiling, vantage point
phenomenal, I see the white eyelet
curtains being eyed by my cat. Her first
heat and wild with desire, she howls
like a madwoman, leaps from the floor,
and with her claws pulls and pulls until
the curtains hang like strands of linguine.
I see the bureau, top drawer minus
the money my father stole while I slept,
and the bottom drawer, my blood
on the edge, a scar already forming
on my lip. And the chair that hides
the monster who comes in the night
to enter my dreams. In the closet,
the red taffeta dress I can’t wear
because my father says red is a color
for a whore. I see the bed where a girl
lays dreaming, seeds inside her
churning, that girl dreaming a man,
the two of them embraced in a waltz,
long before the flamenco‘s fierce
yearning and pulsing hips, long before
the slither of the tango and intertwined
limbs, before the arrogant paso doble,
its separation and attack, its quick,
sharp steps like flint against steel,
her red satin dress in flames, her red
leather spikes setting the floor on fire.
Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water (Wind Publications, 2010). Her poems have been published in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. Vist her website: www.dianelockward.com and her blog: www.dianelockward.blogspot.com
Return to March 2013 Edition