When guest editor Jess Green chose this poem, she said “I love the familiarity and warmth of Dancing In Your Houses, the idea of throughout the week we ‘feel the air waiting patiently for Friday’ and the image of ‘ the corners of the front room no-one usually goes in are filled with wind-milling arms’. Joyous!” We hope it brings you joy, too.
Dancing in your houses
The kitchen was your space
on Wednesdays, door shut,
dishes took an hour to be washed, dried and put away
as you added 80s choreography
to the journey from dirty
to their cupboard belonging.
Dixon family nights
were meals around a table
then music videos and Jack Daniels,
five or six bodies
doing their own thing
to Springsteen or The Beatles. Never Abba.
As you bustle about your week
grabbing swimming trunks,
homework books and woggles
you can feel the air
waiting patiently
for Friday.
On Friday,
you put on music
that makes you happy
or music
that lets you be
sad.
The corners
of the front room no-one usually goes in
are filled with wind-milling arms,
looping fingers and
eyes closed pogo-dancing
to Indie, rock and disco.
The night ends and the air
is still again
as you take the tempo down
to contemplative gazing at the shade
of tonight’s night-cap
with Tom Waits or Johnny Cash.
Sarah L Dixon lives in Linthwaite. Her collection Adding Wax Patterns To Wednesday was released by Three Drops Press in 2018. Sarah’s inspiration comes from adventures with her eight-year-old son, Frank.
