Worth(less)
The past is a midnight dance,
which is to say, it clings to you
like Depression-era dancers clung to each other
as they danced for hours on end,
desperate for the cash prize they might bring home
to an ailing mother, a tyrannical father, and say
See, I am worth something.
Even though days before you tried to end your life
with a halfhearted shot to the head,
you are not a horse with a broken leg,
even though you feel like a horse with a broken leg,
used and useless and a spectacle.
You keep dancing, clinging to the edges of the universe
with hands that are broken, grubby and exhausted.
*Inspired by the book They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?*
Lynne Cattafi teaches English to 7th and 8th graders at a private school in NJ. She enjoys cooking, gardening, drinking coffee in the morning and wine at night, walking her rescue beagle, Gus, and helping her kids build Lego cities. Her poem "Palimpsest" will appear in the September 2019 issue of Elephants Never.
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