A poem by Anne Graue

If you say run, I’ll run with you.

If you say hide, we’ll hide.

Because my love for you

Would break my heart in two.

“Let’s Dance” by David Bowie

No snow in the forecast, and yet there’s snow

on the steps just outside the door. A slanted gift

tied up neatly until the car won’t start or warm

under gloved hands. The stilted morning

lurches forward, cranky and unnatural in smell/

touch/taste, awkwardly leaning toward blue

sky/space/stars, screaming sour cherries

over surreal watches/clocks/timers, screeching

to a halt when the soundbite/arrow rings true.

If you say run, I’ll run with you.

Such a smooth voice. I was twenty and loved

to dance wherever I felt like it, with anyone

who felt like it, but no red shoes—too Kansas.

Fame in the seventies crossed over to eighties

and dancing with Major Tom or anyone floating

by. Under a spell with Freddie, pressure magnified.

It never rains, but it pours, trans-man maxi/mini

wedges/ t-shirts/bell-bottoms with fringe and the

planet earth is blue with possibility, calcified.

If you say hide, we’ll hide.

Human error accounts for most accidents,

but this was no accident; this was art. The moon-

light so serious in the occult dark of time, Osiris

coming back to life/emerging from a tin can

floating far above the Americans, still so young

that cruelty, still so young, that song in blue

funk, that song far from rebellious

and oh so far from home. A revolution

without any sudden noise or hullabaloo.

Because my love for you

sounds like a teenage crush and hurts

twice as much in hindsight, with new

knowledge come to light, so much time

passed from rebel to crooner, from space

man falling to earth girl dancing/crossing

over/through wormholes and witches’ brew

rocketing toward my headphones feeding me

torn dresses, then stepping through the door.

Is it any wonder? That time I spent with you

would break my heart in two.

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Anne Graue is a poet and writing instructor living in New York. She has studied poetry at the Hudson Valley Writers Center, Columbia, and Barnard. Her work appears in The Ginosko Literary Journal, The Westchester Review, American Tanka, The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly, andThe New Verse News.