Switching

We all know the walk.
And that there’s always

that one part in the one song
that enough prosecco and girl talk

turning dangerously wet mouths into
flash floods of oops, expectation,

blinking sober, but not really sober is
when he appears. Beside him, the woman

he grew into need. She’s pruned a version
that moves through space with the sway

of a woman who has known things
and could care less to be held to them.

His name is a void she closes at will, hardly
the depth between skin and muscle

dense from running. To name is a chore.
How it reneges; how it gives permission.

____

darlene anita scott is the author of Marrow, a poetry collection from University Press of Kentucky, and she co-edited Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, a volume of critical and creative work. Also a visual artist, more of her writing and art can be found at darleneanitascott.com.