Winner | Poem of the Week Contest
Trish Lindsey Jaggers of Bowling Green, Kentucky for “What Dancing Is”
What Dancing Is
for Kelly, who says he can’t
It is not in the feet.
Even those bedbound can dance—
eyes closed, music just an earworm,
motions real as muscle memory.
You say you don’t know how
to dance, but you misunderstand
me. In your arms,
my mind moves back,
from yesterday, when we listened
to old songs stitched tight into our history—
past our grandbaby’s eyes locked onto the light
she was lifted up to,
past holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and umbilical cords
of our babies wet-shocked into breathing, from being
cold and hungry and homeless—back
to your pickup truck
parked at the edge of the farm,
its slick sedan seat that could fit four, how,
as evening smoothed over the sky, we leaned in,
closed up the dark, immature space between us,
and the night-smudged field suddenly arced,
flicked afire with lightning bugs’ mating dance,
bioluminescent strobes signaling
to partners hidden in the grass, “There’s room
on this floor.” We held each other and our breaths
as our song played on the radio. Low,
impossible thrum of wings, a dance
we ached to join. Lights
out of time, out of sync, blinked on and on
anyway, regardless if they knew how,
regardless if we thought they were good,
regardless if we danced with them.
Even those bedbound can dance—
eyes closed, music just an earworm,
motions real as muscle memory.
You say you don’t know how
to dance, but you misunderstand
me. In your arms,
my mind moves back,
from yesterday, when we listened
to old songs stitched tight into our history—
past our grandbaby’s eyes locked onto the light
she was lifted up to,
past holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and umbilical cords
of our babies wet-shocked into breathing, from being
cold and hungry and homeless—back
to your pickup truck
parked at the edge of the farm,
its slick sedan seat that could fit four, how,
as evening smoothed over the sky, we leaned in,
closed up the dark, immature space between us,
and the night-smudged field suddenly arced,
flicked afire with lightning bugs’ mating dance,
bioluminescent strobes signaling
to partners hidden in the grass, “There’s room
on this floor.” We held each other and our breaths
as our song played on the radio. Low,
impossible thrum of wings, a dance
we ached to join. Lights
out of time, out of sync, blinked on and on
anyway, regardless if they knew how,
regardless if we thought they were good,
regardless if we danced with them.
*
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trish Lindsey Jaggers wants things simple—no impossible-to-connect inferences meant for a limited audience. Her ”Crazy-Eights” goal as a poet is thus: ”Create simply: Write so an eight-year-old can read it, an eighteen-year-old can understand it, and an eighty-year-old will have lived it.”
Jaggers is the author of De-Composition (Local Gems Poetry Press, 2019) and Holonym: a collection of poems (Finishing Line Press, 2016). She teaches composition, literature, creative writing, and poetry writing at Western Kentucky University.
What Dancing Is © 2025 Trish Lindsey Jaggers
A sweet & tender tribute to a lifetime of love. A poem that makes me smile. Thank you!
Thank you for your poem that reminds me of other times in my life. Wonderful imagery throughout where I could live within the poem’s lines.