Four on the Floor
You tell me you like house music—
how the synthesized thumps traverse your veins,
hippocampus, so you are twenty again,
the exotic American, dancing
with strangers and pint glasses
at Le Beat Route.
Then there is the music of house—
the fridge’s decade-old respirations;
unsettled, foundation cracks;
the a/c’s throbbings, constant, desperate, unsyncopated;
they make me think of Jodie Foster lying
in a New Mexican array, that movie scene
where concussive transmissions arouse her
to finger her headphones,
to reaffirm space.
I think about space, too,
all kinds: nebulas; mileage;
caesuras; naked fingers; the gap
my night brace never fixed; how you space
yourself when you tell a story, your space
so close our shoulders fuse,
as you shift from heel to heel,
trying to meet my steady beat—
until you back into
the blocks, the no loitering signs
between our houses,
leaving me to listen
to your absence and
the spaces between my breaths.
Amy Lerman was born and raised on Miami Beach, moved to the Midwest for many years, and now lives with her husband and very spoiled cats in the Arizona desert, where she is residential English
Faculty at Mesa Community College. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Slippery Elm, Smartish Pace, Common Ground Review, Prime Number, and other publications.
This poem was originally published in Vallum issue 17:2. To view other content published in this issue, look here.
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Vallum: Contemporary Poetry 