For Ten Seconds I Consider Dancing – a poem by Alfred Fournier

For Ten Seconds I Consider Dancing


with the great, joyful unknown. Dancing barefoot
in the slippery mud at the edge of a deep, wild lake.
You can’t fake this kind of dancing, though you make it up
as you go. I throw my cell phone in the lake, my wedding ring,
decide to break all previous engagements, remake myself
here, in this moment, baptized, falling back with perfect
unintention, opening my eyes in pea-green water,
watching bubbles that were my breath rise and burst
on the receding surface—interface between then and now,
between was and will, outer and inner. For ten seconds
I go limp while sunrays bend where seaweed blooms,
its secret flowers seeding an unseen life. Here in the deep,
I will always be dancing.

Title from “Dancing with Storm” by Nikky Finney

Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. His poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Third Wednesday, Gyroscope Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Indianapolis Review and elsewhere. His chapbook A Summons on the Wind is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Twitter: @AlfredFournier4.