Unless I am dancing

I am a machine—left, right, left—right, left, right—point, always point. I don’t think

anymore—just let go and give in. Melt, melt, melt into my shoes—live step-to-step, beat-to-beat until I’m goop—the music stops–friends hug me and ask if I get stage fright—as if the show ever ends. An audience appears in the street even once I’ve crashed back to Earth. It’s the turning.

I often stand beneath the Norway Maples before catching the 1 back uptown from the studio, waiting for the breath of an exhausted sky wolf to rustle branches of autumn leaves. Golden torpedoes zoom past pirouetting maples while five-finned planes meander to the pavement. Some are blessed with arms of different lengths, diseased holes or an asymmetric curl that sends them tumbling down an untraceable path. Each leaf is given one moment to be beautiful, performing the only way it knows how.

Marching over leafy corpses, I make my way home and wonder what to do. The sun does not care that we will be left in darkness until morning, it explodes over and over, breaking apart and fusing back together, keeping space rocks in a celestial waltz. Outside the music, time is my ex-

partner. I can’t find the one.