~She'd Dance~

By Brian Bilston

She'd dance like nobody was watching

although she liked to think he was.

The kitchen was her grand ballroom;

her partner was a mop.

She'd foxtrot among the pots and pans,

she'd paso doble to the sink,

and as she swept across the floor,

her mind danced, too. She'd think

of how he'd held her in his arms

at the Locarno and the Ritz -

whirling, waltzing, a world apart -

in the years before the kids,

and longer still before the shadow

the doctor spotted on his lungs.

How dazzlingly they had danced!

How dizzyingly she had spun!

Her neighbours saw her sometimes

as she shuffled, bent-backed, to the shops.

Back home she'd dance like nobody was watching

although she liked to think he was.