Dance

After Doris Salcedo ‘Untitled’

no spacious shoe boxes for us

an oropendula nest skin

hangs my shoes together

from a thread

your left

your right

your tantrum stamp

drown in a pendulous teardrop

my soles peer

from a viscera chrysalis

heels scratched from the last tango

we never had

facing my scuffed toes,

tasting coconut sun cream

from Key West

where you hatched your plan

to unpick the stitches of your thin skinned prison

slip on your shoes

and sashay

through the nearest exit

the patter of

spineless feet

out of earshot,

I sat on the seafront,

watching humpbacks

breach their starless night,

flukes flailing, then pitching

back into black

my calf hide brogues

still laced in their straitjacket womb

Deep South strange fruit

unripe, suspended

as a voice shouted from

the crackling powder

of hot coals

you can dance now