Fifteen

This inevitable life is a disappointment thing,

moving unembarrassed in the middle of the dancefloor,

flailing its arms to What Difference Does It Make?

as if it were only yesterday.

Having taken a toke on top of a few drinks,

the drive back home was with a fully wound down window,

the airstream a mask of semi-sobriety.

‘What are we doing in this little word temple

thirty-five years later?’

Did anyone else remember that forgettable evening?

Nothing happened, as far as my memory would have it,

apart from the dance floor clearing

while I made my way onto it,

and failed to dance,

but failed to dance like no one was looking.

Why would such a memory sustain?

Maybe it was the first one of those very rare occasions

when I danced in public to The Smiths, intoxicated,

while everyone else took part in the dance floor exodus.

Thank God for Morrissey,

or I wouldn’t have known how to move;

how to make myself look like a desperate one,

accepting my magnificently miserable awkwardness.

How easy it was not to care about anything at all.