my future anthem

Jitterbug

I will not dance the jitterbug:
those trumpet sounds
and clarinets that once
could hold us in their grasp,
with syncopated blast,
are much too slow for me.
Too calm for my old aging feet,
that nineteen-forties beat –
its rhythms seem predictable,
bygone swinging sounds
inside a calloused ear.

Don’t spin me out and then
pretend to let me go,
or whirl me like a top
while keeping me in tow.
For now I am too fast
and wild with age –
the thinning hair in flight
while brittle arches trap new tones
within old dancing bones.
Burning air is underfoot;
I rise above the floor and fly.

You watch me from afar;
shake your head in disbelief,
lift a labored foot or two,
attempt a lindy hop,
in slow motion. But I keep on –

too filled with speeding time to stop –
too full of sound to act my age.
“Come, be old and really fast
like me,” I beg. I grab you
with a flying hand. “Come!
catch me if you can.”

– Joyce Holmes McAllister