My kids, standing on the precipice of adolescence,
Let me explain why your father and I
Ducked under the velvet ropes of your protests
To take to the dance floor
When the Colombian salsa band started playing
In front of the lake, at the Terrace
On that last Friday night in July.
No, it wasn’t to make you die inside.
Nor because we believed ourselves to be
Beautiful or sexy or skilled
In the ways that make a dance scene
Fit for human consumption.
No, it is never for the views.
Although, I suppose, there was something I wanted you to see
Peering out through the bars of consumer culture:
This, this is where it is.
Invisible from the outside.
Whirling dervish foolishness
Attuned to the tick-tock of this mortal clock
To the billions of angel dancers pinning
This moment down for you, for this:
Not to fit the whims of human consumption
But to be humans
Consumed
By the dance.
K.E. McCoy’s poetry has appeared in Stoneboat Literary Journal, Eunoia Review, Willows Wept Review, Speckled Trout Review, and other outlets. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and second place winner of the 2023 Wisconsin People & Ideas Poetry Contest. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and children.