| | | Borderline Mambo As if the lid stayed put on the marmalade.
As if you could get the last sip of champagne
out of the bottom of the fluted glass.
As if we weren't all dying, as if we all weren't
going to die some time, as if we knew for certain
when, or how. As if the baseball scores made sense
to the toddler. As if the dance steps mattered, or there's a point
where they don't. For instance wheelchair. Heart flutter.
Oxygen bottle mounted on the septuagenarian's back
at the state ballroom competitions--that's Manny,
still pumping the mambo with his delicious slip
of an instructor, hip hip hooray. Mambo, for instance,
if done right, gives you a chance to rest: one beat in four.
One chance in four, one chance in ten, a hundred, as if
we could understand what that means. Hooray. Keep
pumping. As if you could keep the lid on a secret
once the symptoms start to make sense. A second
instance, a respite. A third. Always that hope.
If we could just scrape that last little bit
out, if only it wouldn't bottom out
before they can decode the message
sent to the cells. Of course it matters when, even though
(because?) we live in mystery. For instance
Beauty. Love. Honor. As if we didn't like
secrets. Point where it hurts. Of course we'll tell. Copyright © 2013 by Rita Dove. Used with permission of the author. |
| About This Poem "I'm a fanatic ballroom dancer, and Latin rhythms are usually invigorating. But I find mambo simultaneously joyous and poignant for two reasons: first, the pause in the rhythm (stop!-2-3-4) suggests that something's always missing--a hole in the fabric of celebration, perhaps. And, secondly, the memory of Manny dancing with his beautiful young instructor, oxygen tank on his back, suggests a way to plug that hole, even though we know that some patterns--disease, age--are relentless and will grind on long after the dance is done." --Rita Dove |
| Most Recent Book by Dove 
(W. W. Norton & Company, 2009)
|
| | | |  Rita Dove is the author of several books of poetry; her most recent is Sonata Mulattica (W. W. Norton & Comapny, 2009). A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Dove also served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she teaches at the University of Virginia. Today is her birthday.
Photo credit: Fred Viebahn |
| Related Poems by Joyelle McSweeney by Walt McDonald by Humberto Ak'Abal |
| Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the |
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